Source : Reuters | AI-generated illustration
ROME, November 5, 2026 — Hoax bomb threats disrupted at least 27 passenger flights across Europe on Thursday, forcing unplanned landings by some aircraft and prompting fighter jets to escort or intercept others, in the second such wave this week, Reuters reported.
No explosives were found and no country publicly attributed blame. The alerts stretched from Ireland to Bulgaria and affected carriers including Ryanair, Aer Lingus, easyJet, Finnair, LOT, Wizz Air, Iberia, Air Europa and Air Serbia, according to Reuters and The Guardian. Combined with earlier incidents on Monday and Tuesday, more than 30 flights have been disrupted this week.
In France, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s office said fighter jets intercepted an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome and escorted it to an air-force base at Évreux after the pilot did not cooperate with authorities as expected. Bulgaria’s air force said its jets escorted three airliners; a Ryanair service from London to Sofia was diverted to Plovdiv.
Spanish authorities said three emailed threats arrived within 20 minutes involving Air Europa departures from Madrid to Paris and inbound Iberia flights from Rome and Milan. Several aircraft in Madrid were halted or returned to stands while passengers were taken off for inspections. In Warsaw, a LOT flight to Paris was stopped while taxiing and passengers were moved to another aircraft.
Other threatened flights landed as scheduled in Prague, Vienna, Brussels, Bucharest, Rome and Milan, some after military escorts. An airport source in Italy told Reuters that an email claiming devices were aboard inbound flights had been sent to addresses linked to Rome’s Fiumicino and Milan’s Malpensa airports; Reuters could not independently confirm the sender.
European officials have recently accused Russia of sabotage and “hybrid” attacks that are cheap and deniable. Denmark, Poland, Romania and Germany have made such claims in other cases; Britain has previously blamed Russia for some plots and linked Iran to a separate suspected attack on a US base. Moscow and Tehran deny involvement. Aviation risk advisers at Osprey Flight Solutions told Reuters a Russian hybrid link was a “realistic probability,” while warning that personal grievances or copycats were also possible.
Security experts said airlines must treat every threat as real until cleared, even though most prove false. Diversions, searches and crew-duty limits impose costs on carriers and delays on passengers. Investigators said on Thursday they had not identified a single organiser behind the latest wave.
Source: Reuters on X, with background from Reuters reporting and The Guardian.
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