A wave of bomb threats on Tuesday caused significant disruption across Europe, forcing at least eight passenger jets to make emergency landings or undergo security sweeps. Flights were grounded in Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Poland.
Two jets departing from the UK experienced threats, with a third UK-bound flight disrupted the previous day. One of the affected flights on Tuesday was a LOT Polish Airlines service from London Heathrow to Warsaw, carrying 181 passengers including Jewish schoolchildren on a Holocaust education trip. The plane was diverted to Warsaw-Modlin Airport due to a threat about an explosive device on board. Passengers were evacuated, and security teams later conducted a search but found no explosives.
Another incident involved a Ryanair flight from Manchester that landed at Murcia Airport in southern Spain and was met by police and bomb disposal teams. Passengers were not informed of the threat until after landing. Similarly, a flight from Copenhagen to Warsaw was diverted to Warsaw Chopin Airport following a bomb alert.
In Rome, two Ryanair flights from Lisbon and Dublin were escorted by Italian fighter jets before landing at Fiumicino Airport and were subsequently searched by bomb disposal experts, with no devices found. Two other flights, a Wizz Air jet from Bergamo, Italy, and a Ryanair plane from Dublin, both bound for Sofia, Bulgaria, also received threats. Counter-terrorism police found no explosives on either aircraft.
Officials in the UK described the incidents as "malicious hoax" threats. The series of scares comes amid heightened tensions between Europe and Russia. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that his country's security forces had thwarted an attempted provocation on its border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, suggesting Russia might be escalating hybrid warfare tactics.