An airliner heading from Dublin to Rome was rerouted to France on Thursday after a bomb threat, the French government said.
The flight was diverted to a French base in Evreux in Normandy where it landed safely, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s office said.
All 151 passengers and six crew members were safe and military bomb disposal teams were examining the plane, it added.
According to flight-tracking website Flightradar24, an Aer Lingus aircraft turned near Paris and was circling over the Evreux area after declaring an in-flight emergency.
The incident came a day after some 10 European flights were targeted by bomb threats on Tuesday, forcing the brief closure of a Warsaw airport and the scrambling of air force planes in Rome, according to authorities.
Read moreBomb threats against European airlines force Warsaw airport closure, affect several flights
Planes forced to land in Belgium, Bulgaria
Belgian media on Thursday reported that an airliner forced to land at Brussels’ Zaventem airport belonged to the Polish airline LOT.
A Finnair plane from Helsinki was safely escorted to its scheduled landing in Rome by the Italian air force, a source close to the matter said.
Meanwhile Bulgarian officials reported three aircraft making emergency landings due to bomb threats.
Airplanes flying from Copenhagen and Madrid landed in Sofia, the interior minister said, according to broadcaster bTV.
A third aircraft, from London, landed in Plovdiv, local media said.
Czech police said they deployed at Prague’s Vaclav Havel Airport to prepare for the landing of four planes after receiving a threat of explosive devices on board. Police said that “all necessary security measures have been activated”.
Further on Thursday, ANSA news agency reported that two planes affected by bomb alerts, an Aegean Airlines flight from Thessaloniki, and a Ryanair flight from Porto, had landed safely at their destination at Milan’s Malpensa airport.
On Tuesday, seven flights and a cruise ship in Europe received bomb threats on Tuesday, causing disruption at airports although no devices were discovered.
The flights included Polish airline LOT, Scandinavian Airlines, Wizz Air and Ryanair. The hoax threats came a day after a plane headed for Bulgaria was diverted to Hungary following a similar bomb threat while in the air. No one was injured.
While no country has attributed blame for the threats, they come at a time when European officials have been blaming both Russia and Iran for what they describe as “hybrid attacks” and acts of sabotage. Moscow and Tehran both deny any such campaign.
This week, unidentified hackers shut down fridges in supermarkets in several European countries. Some experts said hoax bomb threats could be part of a similar pattern of low-cost, deniable disruption efforts.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
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