Bomb scares that disrupted flights across Europe this week, including one from London Stansted, have been deemed “malicious” hoaxes by the Transport Secretary.
A Ryanair flight from London Stansted to Sofia in Bulgaria, flight FR1730, had to be diverted to Plovdiv today (5 November). The flight left Stansted at 6am and was due to arrive in Sofia at 9.25am. It is one of at least 14 flights around Europe impacted today by alerts issued.
On Tuesday (3 November) a similar incident happened after a LOT Polish Airlines flight from Heathrow had to make an emergency landing at Warsaw-Modlin Airport due to a bomb alert hoax. Today’s incident makes it the second time this week multiple European flights have been affected by such alerts.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has said these were “malicious hoax threats”. She said there are “established processes for dealing with hoax and malicious threats, and that’s what these threats have been”. She continued that despite being deemed as hoax threats, the government “take these threats seriously”.
The Stansted flight to Sofia is currently the only plane that was departing or landing near London affected today. At least seven flights across Europe were searched on Tuesday following the previous alert. Czech police have said that it had four flights that received threats, but the relevance of the threats are “low”. There is currently no confirmed link between the Tuesday threats and the incidents today.
Related: LOT Polish Airlines flight from Heathrow makes emergency landing after bomb threat
Related: Three Eurostar trains cancelled today as strikes disrupt services from St Pancras
