Bomb threats targeted more than a dozen passenger flights across Europe on Thursday, forcing diversions, emergency landings and military escorts. Every affected aircraft landed safely, and authorities reported finding no explosive or suspicious material, leading British officials to describe the incidents as malicious hoaxes.
The scale was exceptional even though false threats are not uncommon. Similar warnings had disrupted flights earlier in the week, but the concentration of incidents across several countries placed pressure on air traffic control, military alert systems, airport security teams and passengers at the same time.
An Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome was diverted to the French military air base at Évreux. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's office said French fighters intercepted the aircraft after the pilot did not cooperate as expected with authorities. Bomb-disposal teams and dogs then examined the plane on the ground.
Italian air force jets escorted a Finnair flight from Helsinki to Rome. Three Ryanair services bound for Bulgaria also received military escorts: two landed in Sofia and another from London was diverted to Plovdiv. Additional threats affected LOT, Wizz Air and other flights arriving in Prague, Vienna, Brussels and Bucharest.
Emails sent to some Rome-bound aircraft claimed to represent anti-feminist groups and used similar language, according to officials who reviewed the messages. Investigators have not established whether the senders were connected, whether one actor copied another or whether the labels were intended to misdirect attribution.
The incidents occurred amid wider European concern about hybrid disruption, including drone incursions and attacks on civilian systems. Officials stressed that no evidence yet links the threats to Russia or any state actor. The European Union activated its aviation-security information-sharing mechanism while national investigations continued.
The immediate security response succeeded because crews, controllers and military units treated each warning as credible until searches proved otherwise. The longer-term challenge is to identify coordinated hoaxes without normalising risk, since repeated false alarms can impose large costs and may eventually weaken vigilance if authorities and passengers become desensitised.
