An Airbus A320 travelling from Dublin to Rome was diverted to a military airbase in France on Thursday following a bomb threat, the French prime minister's office said. The aircraft was rerouted to Evreux in Normandy, with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's office monitoring the situation. The government did not immediately provide further information about the incident.
Flight-tracking service Flightradar24 showed an Aer Lingus aircraft changing course near Paris after declaring an emergency in flight. The plane was subsequently circling in the Evreux area, according to the website. The diversion came as authorities across Europe dealt with a series of threats against passenger flights.
Authorities reported that around 10 European flights were targeted by bomb threats on Tuesday. The disruption included the temporary closure of an airport in Warsaw and the deployment of air force aircraft in Rome. A separate account of Tuesday's incidents described threats against seven flights and a cruise ship in Europe, with no explosive devices found.
Belgian media reported on Thursday that an aircraft belonging to Polish carrier LOT had been forced to land at Brussels' Zaventem airport. In Italy, the air force escorted a Finnair aircraft arriving from Helsinki to its scheduled landing in Rome. That flight landed safely, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Bulgarian authorities also reported three emergency landings prompted by bomb threats. Two aircraft, departing from Copenhagen and Madrid, landed in Sofia, the interior minister said in comments reported by broadcaster bTV. Local media said a third aircraft, which had departed from London, landed in Plovdiv.
The flights affected by Tuesday's hoax threats included services operated by LOT, Scandinavian Airlines, Wizz Air and Ryanair. Those incidents followed a similar threat a day earlier against an aircraft bound for Bulgaria, which was diverted to Hungary while in flight. No one was injured in that incident.
No country has assigned responsibility for the threats. They occurred against a backdrop of accusations by European officials that Russia and Iran were carrying out sabotage and what the officials call hybrid attacks. Both Moscow and Tehran deny conducting such a campaign.
In another incident this week, unidentified hackers shut down supermarket refrigerators in several European countries. Some experts suggested that hoax bomb threats could fit a similar pattern of inexpensive disruption in which those responsible can deny involvement.
