image copyrightReuters
The bomb threat, which is already the second this week, has disrupted at least 21 flights and several airports across Europe. British authorities condemned this as a “malicious false report.”
Affected flights are to Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Poland and Romania. An Aer Lingus aircraft heading from Dublin, Ireland to Rome, Italy was diverted to an air force base in France, and a Finnair flight departing from Helsinki heading to Rome was escorted by Italian fighter planes.
The airline EasyJet said that as a precautionary measure, local police were dispatched after its flights from Newcastle and Glasgow arrived in Prague, Czech Republic.
Threats were also received at London Heathrow Airport and Birmingham Airport in the UK, but authorities deemed them not credible.
No explosives have been found during the search to date, and a little-known group has claimed responsibility for some of the incidents, but it is still unclear whether the incidents are related.
Rome's airport authorities explained that false threats targeting two flights scheduled to enter the country were received via email on the 5th.
The email, sent by a group or individual calling itself the 'Warriors of the Male Nation', claimed that they were targeting a "feminist regime" and that they wanted to "leave our mark on history."
It also threatened that the explosion would "turn the sky red."
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These details were first reported by local Italian media, and later Airports Rome (ADR), an airport operating company that manages and operates two airports in downtown Rome, confirmed the facts to the BBC.
The ‘male warriors of the nation’ appears to refer to the Russian far-right group ‘Muzskoy Legion’ (meaning ‘male legion’). In 2021, a Russian court banned their activities due to their excessive extremist tendencies. But the group gathered tens of thousands of supporters online in support of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine the following year.
However, regardless of the authenticity of the email, it is unlikely that police and airport authorities in each country will be able to provide any clues as to the culprit and his motive for spreading the false threat.
British Transport Minister Heidi Alexander condemned the incidents on the 5th as "malicious false threats."
However, the government emphasized that it "takes these threats seriously" and that it has "established procedures to respond to false and malicious threats."
A British government spokesman later explained that the threat, which had been received "in the early hours" of the day, had "been resolved", but did not provide further details.
Heathrow Airport later issued a statement saying it had received the threat this morning but "deemed it not to be credible," adding, "There is no risk to passengers, staff or the aircraft."
“The UK’s aviation security system has procedures in place to assess and safely manage these types of situations.”
A Birmingham Airport spokesperson told the BBC that after receiving the threat, the airport "immediately took action to respond, working with emergency response agencies and relevant authorities."
Meanwhile, the flights targeted by threats on the 5th were as follows:
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Emily Noble, 26, who was a passenger on the rerouted Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome, said she was told there was a "technical" problem about an hour into her flight to attend a friend's wedding in Rome.
The woman, from Dublin, told the BBC Verify team that she had started to divert to land in France and that the captain had explained to the passengers that there were "security" issues.
Noble said it was a "weird experience" and that everyone was "worried because we didn't know what was happening, but we tried to stay as calm as possible."
He said he could hear fighter jets during landing and even saw a fighter jet land behind the aircraft.
It was only after landing at Evreux-Fauville air base in Normandy, northwestern France, that passengers learned that there had been a bomb threat related to the flight.
image copyrightEmily Noble
According to Noble, after landing, police and military officials mobilized detection dogs to conduct search and inspection operations, and the passengers also stayed on the plane for about 2 hours and 30 minutes.
Passengers were then transferred to another airport in Paris where they were informed that they would be taken to Rome on an alternative flight.
Meanwhile, Professor Philip Baum, who teaches aviation security at Britain's Carbontree University, said the aviation industry "faces countless bomb threats every day" but said he was "surprised" by the series of incidents that occurred this week.
Flights will only be diverted "if authorities determine that the threat is credible and that there is a possibility of explosives on board."
Professor Baum emphasized that he was concerned that "if false threats become too frequent, we may become less alert and real threats may be ignored. And this is precisely the fact that this can be exploited."
Marco Chan, an aviation expert at the University of Kingston in the UK, said of the incident in an interview with the BBC: "It is most likely a hoax, but it is the right thing for authorities and systems to treat and respond to as a real threat."
According to him, some experts see this as an act of sabotage in the aviation industry that "creates chaos at relatively low cost and makes it difficult to trace the mastermind."
It is also possible that some of the threats were caused by copycats, but he added, "It is difficult to distinguish between organized cooperation and simple imitation based on the incidents that occurred over three days."
Meanwhile, two days ago, seven European flights, including two from the UK, were searched for bomb threats. However, no explosives were found on either aircraft.
On the 2nd, a Wizz Air flight from London Luton Airport to Sofia, Bulgaria received a bomb threat during the flight and had to return to Budapest under the escort of Hungarian fighter planes.
