Multiple flights to European airports targeted by bomb threats

Polish authorities said they carried out inspections of two passenger planes targeted by bomb threats on Tuesday but did not find any explosives, in a string of bomb threats that hit several European airports.

A bomb alert forced a LOT flight from London's Heathrow to make an unscheduled landing at Warsaw-Modlin airport, prompting the airport to shut down. Operations resumed around midday.

"The passengers were evacuated and the plane underwent security checks. Nothing was found," airport spokesman Adam Szablowski told the French AFP news agency. "The airport has been reopened and is operating normally."

A SAS Scandinavian Airlines flight from Copenhagen also received a bomb threat before landing safely at Warsaw's central Chopin airport, where it underwent a security inspection.

No explosives were found on either plane. It was not immediately clear whether the threats were linked.

Also on Tuesday, a Ryanair flight from Manchester, UK, to Murcia, Spain, was hit by a bomb threat. It landed safely and underwent checks after all the passengers had disembarked.

The Spanish government's delegate in the region of Murcia, Francisco Lucas, confirmed on X that police "ruled out the presence of explosives on the plane."

"The International Airport of the Region of Murcia resumes its activity normally. Thanks to the emergency teams that have participated in the operation," he said.

And in the fourth such incident, the Reuters news agency reported that another flight traveling from Israel landed in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, on Tuesday after a bomb threat was received via email. Counter-terrorism units were checking the plane for possible explosive devices, ​BTA news agency ⁠quoted Interior Minister Secretary General Lyubomir Nikolov as saying.

Later, two more bomb threats also targeted Ryanair flights from Lisbon and Dublin to Rome’s Fiumicino airport, according to Italian media. Air Force jets were deployed as a result. Both threats turned out to be false alarms.

The six threats on Tuesday come after a WizzAir flight from London to Sofia was redirected to the Hungarian capital, Budapest, on Monday after it received a bomb threat mid-air.

Similar such incidents have been reported across different European airports in recent weeks, with alerts later turning out to be false.