November 5, 2026
MILAN (AP) — Bomb threats targeted more than a dozen flights in Europe on Thursday, leading to a slew of emergency landings and military escorts in some cases, authorities said. No hazardous or suspicious materials have been found in what a British official called “malicious" hoaxes.
Several similar threats targeted planes earlier this week, prompting searches and diversions.
While fake bomb threats are not uncommon, it is unusual to see so many in a single day, causing widespread disruptions. They come at a time of increased geopolitical tensions and warnings from authorities that Russia may be ramping up so-called hybrid threats in Europe. The continent has experienced a slew of other disruptions recently, such as attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems, drone incursions and mysterious triggers to alert apps.
It was not known whether this week's threats were linked — and who was behind them remained murky.
An email containing the threat to Rome-bound planes was sent on behalf of a group that describes itself as anti-feminist, according to a copy provided by an airport official and reviewed by the AP. An official from another European airport said the threat they received also came from a group calling itself anti-feminist, and used some of the same language. It was not clear if they were the same group. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to share the information.
Britain’s Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told British broadcasters that flights across Europe have been hit by “malicious hoax threats.”
European Union Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas told reporters in Dublin that it was “too early to draw conclusions on whether the reported incidents are linked.”
“National investigations remain ongoing,” he said, adding that an EU information-sharing mechanism on aviation security had been activated.
A flight from Dublin to Rome was diverted to a military air base in France after receiving a threat, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s office said. The Aer Lingus flight landed safely at the base in Evreux, which was under high alert, and military bomb disposal teams were examining the plane, the office said.
Lecornu ordered warplanes to intercept the plane because the pilot “didn’t cooperate as expected with the authorities,” his office said.
Hours later, the plane was sitting on the tarmac with a Red Cross vehicle nearby while explosive experts with dogs examined it.
An investigation was opened by French aviation security authorities.
Italian air force fighter jets escorted a Finnair flight that departed Helsinki bound for Rome after an email threat was received, the air force said in a statement.
Finnair said that two of its flights, including the one that received the military escort and landed safely in Rome, “faced unfounded hoax bomb scares.” The other flight, operated by Jettime from Helsinki to Vienna, landed safely at its destination and was expected to return to service after an inspection, Finnair said.
Three Ryanair flights bound for Sofia, Bulgaria, meanwhile, also received military escorts and made emergency landings after bomb threats, officials said. Two of the flights — one from Copenhagen, Denmark, and the other from Madrid — landed safely in Sofia, airport officials told reporters. The third, from London, was diverted and landed safely in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city, Plovdiv Airport CEO Krassimir Peshev said.
Several flights across Europe received bomb threats earlier this week, officials said.
The flights included ones operated by Polish airline LOT, Scandinavian Airlines, Wizz Air and Ryanair. The hoax threats came after a plane headed for Bulgaria was diverted to Hungary after receiving a similar bomb threat while in the air. No one was injured.
A slew of other flights were disrupted Thursday. Among those incidents:
— Czech police said searches of four planes that landed in Prague after being targeted by bomb threats turned up nothing. They have not given details on where the flights originated, and said they took precautions despite not finding the threats credible.
— A LOT Polish Airlines flight from Warsaw to Brussels landed at its destination, where inspections found no hazardous or suspicious items, the airline said.
— A Wizz Air flight from Milan to Bucharest landed safely in Bucharest following a bomb threat, airport spokesman Teo Postelnicu said. Checks turned up no bomb.
— A flight to Warsaw landed in Vienna after an email to Polish authorities containing an abstract threat, said Stefan Loidl, a police spokesperson in Lower Austria province. Nothing was found, and the plane continued to Warsaw. He said there was also an abstract threat to Vienna Airport concerning four other flights, which he declined to identify, but operations were not disrupted.
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