Bomb-threat hoaxes disrupt more than a dozen European flights

More than a dozen passenger flights across Europe were targeted by bomb threats on Thursday, forcing diversions, emergency procedures and military escorts for aircraft linked to cities including Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, Madrid, Milan and Warsaw. The Associated Press and AFP reported that searches found no explosives or other suspicious material. All affected aircraft landed safely, and no injuries were reported.

Three Ryanair flights bound for Sofia were escorted through Bulgarian airspace; one from London Stansted diverted to Plovdiv. French fighters guided an Aer Lingus Dublin–Rome flight to the Évreux military air base, while Italian aircraft escorted a Finnair service from Helsinki to Rome. The alerts followed similar hoaxes earlier in the week, bringing the reported weekly total above 20. Police and airlines treated each warning as a potential safety threat even where credibility was assessed as low.

Searches for bomb threats to flights reached 10K+ in Britain and 500+ in Australia during the preceding four hours. The reliable answer to the likely safety question is limited: authorities have described the messages as malicious hoaxes and found no devices, but investigators have not publicly identified a sender, established a common origin or attributed the campaign to a state or group.