Dozens of bomb threats involving aircraft were reported on Friday. Two planes landed at Bucharest’s Henri Coandă Airport following such threats.
On Thursday morning, a Wizz Air plane arriving from Milan with 182 passengers and seven crew members on board was inspected by the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) after the pilots notified the control tower of a bomb threat. The alert turned out to be a false alarm.
A similar incident involved an Air Serbia flight arriving from Belgrade. On Thursday evening, a KLM plane bound for Tel Aviv, with a stopover in Bucharest, was evacuated for security checks. In this case too, Romanian authorities determined that there was no threat.
The incidents in Bucharest were part of a broader wave of bomb scares across Europe. On Thursday, at least 27 flights across the European Union were targeted by such threats. Authorities are trying to establish who is behind the threats and whether the incidents reported in several countries are connected.
“The identities of those responsible and any possible links between these incidents are currently under investigation. The investigations are ongoing and are being coordinated across several countries and authorities,” said Ovidiu Marincea, spokesperson for the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI).
Another alert was reported in Italy, where a plane flying from Prague to Rome was diverted to Venice following a reported bomb threat, according to Antena3.
A Ryanair plane flying from Rome to Lisbon landed in the Portuguese capital at around 8:00 a.m. local time, and authorities began checks to determine whether the threat was credible.
Four more bomb threats were reported in France on Friday, involving aircraft passing through the country’s airspace. All the planes landed safely.
According to Bulgaria’s transport minister and Prague Airport, 11 flights to or from Prague or Sofia were targeted by bomb threats on Friday.