Wave of bomb threats against European airliners triggers diversions and tarmac searches

LONDON — A wave of bomb threats against passenger airliners caused chaos in the skies and airports of Europe on Thursday, the latest of such incidents this week that have prompted emergency landings and security sweeps on runways. No explosives have so far been found, and it is not clear who or what is behind the security threats made against at least 14 airliners. But the threats have caused disruption to Europe’s airspace and some of its busiest airports. The threats against two flights that landed in Rome came by email that said it was made in opposition to “your feminist regime,” the airport confirmed to NBC News. Italy’s prime minister is a woman, Giorgia Meloni. One of the first reports involved Aer Lingus Flight EI402 from Dublin to Rome, which changed course near Paris and diverted to a French air force base, the airline said. There, all 151 passengers and six crewmembers were evacuated while a bomb squad inspected the aircraft, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s office said in a statement. From there, reports of threats in the skies over Europe arrived at dizzying pace, triggering searches by cabin crews and then again by airport security once on the ground. Security operations were launched at airports in Prague, Copenhagen and Warsaw, with passengers at the last seeing the military and police sniffer dogs patrolling the tarmac. “It is too early to draw conclusions on whether the reported incidents are linked,” Apostolos Tzitzikostas, European commissioner for sustainable transport and tourism, told a news conference in Brussels, adding that “we don’t have information yet whether this is a cyber attack.” A Finnair flight from Helsinki was escorted by Italian air force jets to Rome’s Fiumicino Airport “following anonymous reports of a suspected bomb threat,” according to a spokesperson for the city’s airport authority. Bomb disposal experts found nothing. “Unfortunately, air traffic is sometimes subject to threats, as we have seen this week, when other airlines in Europe have also faced hoax bomb threats,” a Finnair spokesperson, Stiina Tuunanen, told NBC News in an email. “Threats are almost always unfounded.” That was also the case for another Finnair flight from Helsinki to Vienna, whose threat was found to be baseless after landing safely in the Austrian capital. LOT Polish Airlines said two of its aircraft from Warsaw were targeted, one flying to Brussels and the other to Paris. Back on the ground in Warsaw, Polish resident Matthew Bojarsky, 28, was about to fly to Paris for a romantic trip with his American girlfriend, but saw police, military and sniffer dogs on the tarmac, he told NBC News. Passengers were told that “safety protocols” meant their flight, LOT LO331, had to be aborted and moved to a later time. Elsewhere, three Ryanair flights were interrupted as they headed to the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. Two flights, from Copenhagen and Milan, landed at their destination while a third, from London, was diverted to the city of Plovdiv, the Bulgarian Transport Ministry said in an email. Ryanair did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In the Czech Republic, meanwhile, police said they had received threats about improvised explosive devices being place on four planes heading to the country’s capital, Prague. In this instance it appeared that at least some of the threats were sent by email, so “clearly there must be a process whereby airlines distinguish more credible threats from obvious hoaxes,” Peter Neumann, a professor of security studies at Kings College London, said. Thursday’s incidents follow days of airline bomb threats that have forced multiple flights to divert and an airport in Poland to briefly close. No explosive devices were found in the earlier incidents, according to authorities in various countries. On Tuesday, a security operation was also launched at the Greek island port ⁠of Syros after a bomb threat ​to an Israel-bound cruise ship. Authorities said an unknown person claimed an explosive device had been attached to ⁠the hull of the Panama-flagged Crown Iris that was due to sail ⁠to Haifa. Authorities have not indicated who could have been behind the incidents and there were no claims of responsibility.