Bomb threats hit four European flights within hours

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This illustrative image from November 5, 2025 shows a passenger plane of Polish airline LOT at Chopin Airport in Warsaw, Poland. newsweek.com

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A Boeing 737 MAX operating LOT flight LO286 from London Heathrow landed at Warsaw Modlin Airport seven minutes after a bomb alert was raised, closing the field while specialists inspected the aircraft and the luggage of its 181 occupants. It was one of four flights threatened across Europe within hours on Tuesday.

An SAS flight from Copenhagen landed as scheduled at Warsaw Chopin and was inspected after receiving its own threat, according to Danish media. A Ryanair plane from Manchester with 121 people aboard made an emergency landing at Murcia in southern Spain; the Spanish government's regional delegate, Francisco Lucas, said the Guardia Civil had ruled out explosives on board after the 114 passengers and seven crew disembarked for security checks. Bulgarian media reported a flight from Israel landed in Sofia after a threat received by email. All four flights landed safely.

A day earlier, a Wizz Air flight from London Luton to Sofia made an emergency landing in Budapest under escort from a Hungarian fighter jet; subsequent checks found that threat was a false alarm.

The economics of the format are the story. A threat costs nothing to issue. The response — diversions, fighter escorts, airport closures, aircraft sweeps, baggage inspected piece by piece — runs at full price every time, paid by airlines, airports, underwriters and the passengers waiting in arrivals halls. Security services cannot distinguish a hoax from a device until the sweep is finished, so every threat triggers the entire protocol, and the sender is almost never identified. No one has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's series, and no one has been caught for the wave that preceded it. As long as the response is mandatory and the cost of issuing the threat is zero, the wave format keeps working — for hoax contagion, for harassment, or for anyone with an interest in European airspace feeling unsafe.

Warsaw Modlin reopened around midday. No suspicious items were found on the Heathrow jet, and passengers completed border checks and continued to Warsaw Chopin by coach.