Aviation

A string of hoax alerts causing flight diversions across Europe this week have broadened to include newsrooms.

A new series of bomb threats caused more flight diversions across Europe on Friday, while also expanding to target a number of media organisations.

British broadcaster Sky said it was one of a number of newsrooms that received a bomb threat. “We have carried out a security assessment and reported the matter to the relevant authorities,” a spokesperson said.

Bulgaria’s Nova TV and the Irish public broadcaster RTE received emailed bomb threats from a purported “Mikhail Andropov”, headlined “Message to the West”, portraying the threats as a prelude to more disruptions across Europe.

RTE briefly evacuated staff, including radio and television presenters, in Dublin after an email was received on Friday morning. RTE Radio One presenter David McCullagh later told listeners that the threat warned that a bomb would explode within 45 minutes.

The Irish government said hoax bomb claims were also sent to Virgin Media, Newstalk radio and The Irish Independent newspaper and that it was unclear who was behind them.

“However, these threats come on the heels of the ongoing disruption to aviation around Europe caused by similar threats, and it seems likely that this is a coordinated campaign of disruption,” it said in a statement.

The incidents come a day after hoax bomb threats disrupted more than two dozen flights across Europe on Thursday, and days after other aircraft and a cruise ship received bomb alerts.

‘Hoax threats’ increasing

On Friday, jets escorted airliners flying from Brussels to Sofia and from Prague to Bucharest and Cyprus through Hungarian airspace due to bomb threats, Hungarian Defence Minister Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi said.

He also said NATO had ordered an air patrol near the Hungarian-Romanian border, the first report that the Western defence alliance had become involved.

Danish police said threats were directed at traffic at Copenhagen airport but that there appeared to be no danger to passengers. The airport said it was “operating normally”.

Czech police registered bomb threats to nine flights departing from or arriving in Prague. An airport spokesperson said no flights had been ⁠⁠cancelled as a result.

France said four new bomb threats were made to aircraft flying over French territory, and that all landed safely.

A Ryanair flight from Rome landed as scheduled in Lisbon, CNN Portugal reported.

About half a dozen ‌‌flights were disrupted on Tuesday and more than two dozen on Thursday, some of them making unplanned landings or being escorted to their destinations by fighter jets.

Al Jazeera’s Frances Read, reporting from London on Friday, said that while the threats have not been credible so far, disruptions appear to be widening.

“The number of hoax threats this week is making governments sit up and take notice about where this might be coming from and also think of solutions for how to deal with it,” she said.

Flights across Europe have been diverted, grounded and escorted by fighter jets in response to a wave of bomb threats, marking a second major outbreak of false alerts in less than a week.

On Thursday, planes departing from 16 countries, including Ireland, the United Kingdom, Spain and Denmark, were affected. Flights have either been forced to divert to alternate locations or undergo additional security checks. On Friday, the threats continued.

Authorities have deployed bomb disposal teams and military fighter jets in several countries. So far, security inspections following threats have yielded no evidence of explosives or suspicious materials on board aircraft, and no passenger has reported being harmed.

What happened?

On Friday, a Ryanair flight landed in Lisbon, Portugal at 8am after a bomb threat was made by phone to the authorities, Italian media has reported. A security operation was mounted as soon as the plane landed. Separately, the control tower in Fiumicino, Italy, received an alert about a device aboard a Wizzair flight to Rome from Paris. The Wizzair flight was diverted to Venice where police were clearing the area around the plane.

On Thursday, there were numerous threats, including the following:

• In Poland, authorities received a warning about a potentially dangerous object on board a Polish Airlines flight already taxiing on the runway at Warsaw Chopin Airport. The flight to Paris was prevented from taking off and passengers disembarked, but a search by security services found nothing dangerous on board, an airline spokesman told local media.
• In Warsaw, a LOT flight to Paris was also halted and passengers were transferred to another ‌aircraft.
• A LOT flight from London Heathrow to Warsaw-Chopin Airport was forced to land at the Polish capital’s other airport, Warsaw-Modlin, following a threat. Nothing was found on board.
• The Italian Air Force escorted a Finnair plane into Rome after an anonymous bomb-threat email was sent to Aeroporti di Roma (ADR) and other companies at Fiumicino. The plane arrived safely.
• In Bulgaria, a Ryanair flight from London to Sofia was diverted to make an emergency landing in Plovdiv, the country’s second city, following a bomb threat.
• In the space of just 20 minutes, Spanish authorities reported receiving three emailed bomb threats regarding two Air Europa departures from Madrid to Paris and four inbound Iberia flights from Rome and Milan, Spain’s Guardia Civil said.
• A flight ⁠from Cork in Ireland was delayed for 90 minutes when the airport received a threat, the airport operator said.
• A Ryanair flight from Pescara in Italy to Charleroi in Belgium was subject to a false bomb alarm, state news agency Ansa reported. Local media in Belgium reported that security protocols were triggered after the word “bomb” was found written in one of the aircraft’s restrooms.

What happens when a threat is received?

When an airline is notified of a threat to an aircraft, it is passed to a team of assessors, said Joji Waites, director of flight safety, policy and regulation at BALPA, the British Airlines Pilots’ Association.

“These assessors use standard processes to grade the threat and decide whether the threat is red (credible), amber (partially credible) or green (not credible). Amber is not considered an appropriate assessment if the plane is airborne,” said Waites.

After receiving a threat, an aircraft is directed to an area well away from the airport buildings. Passengers are disembarked and screened while border police with sniffer dogs inspect the plane, according to an airport official.

Is this the first time threats like this have been made?

No.

The incidents follow a series of hoax bomb threats earlier this week. On Monday, a flight from the UK to Bulgaria was diverted after a threat that turned out to be without substance. On Tuesday, seven planes across Europe were searched or diverted because of malicious hoax bomb alerts.

And also this week, there have also been cyberattacks on supermarkets in several European cities, with hackers changing the temperature on refrigeration in an apparent attempt to spoil food.

How unusual is this?

Philip Baum, a visiting professor of aviation security at Coventry University, said the scale and coordinated nature of these latest incidents are unusual.

“There are indeed individual airlines that experience a bomb threat every day, but most of those are very quickly evaluated and determined to be non-specific, and the aircraft do not divert,” said Baum.

What sets the latest incidents apart, he said, is that authorities across several European countries appear to be treating the threats as credible enough to require planes to land and undergo security inspections. Baum noted that each flight disruption could cost airlines as much as $250,000.

The UK’s government called the latest disruption “malicious hoax threats”. London Heathrow, the busiest airport for passenger traffic in Europe, was also targeted. It says it has one of the most robust aviation safety systems in the world, but countries still have to take the threats seriously and figure out how to stop any actors from creating further disruptions to air travel across Europe.

Who is behind this?

The European Commissioner for Transport said it is too early to say who’s behind these attacks or whether the incidents are even connected.

European governments have so far refrained from blaming anyone. But those which have supported Ukraine are wary of hybrid attacks. Germany has directly pointed the finger at Russia for recent drone incursions at Leipzig-Halle Airport. Moscow rejected the accusations.

EU officials are aware of the possibility that Russia would step up its hybrid campaign. In September, the Danish Defence Intelligence Service warned that this could happen to pressure adversaries in the West and NATO.

However, Moscow has denied being involved in the threats to aviation in Europe and there is no evidence of any involvement by Russia, Iran or any proxy groups linked to them.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tells reporters there appeared to be no casualties on the ground.

Nine people have died after a business jet crashed into a residential neighbourhood in South Florida, the United States.

All on board were killed in the crash, which US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described as a “horrific tragedy” in a post on X on Sunday.

Federal Aviation Administration staff were on their way to the crash site to support a National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the incident, Duffy said.

Disturbing recordings in the plane’s cockpit shortly before the crash, retained by LiveATC.net, captured the pilot talking about “manageable” ice issues, before later saying the plane was rapidly losing altitude.

Shortly after, the panicked crew said, “We’re going to crash into the ground”.

The plane was a Learjet 60 – a popular business jet – heading from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas. Austin-Bergstrom International airport confirmed that the plane was a private jet, but not who was on board.

Videos of the incident circulating online appear to show the jet striking the ground at high speed and on a sharp angle, followed by a huge explosion.

Footage of the aftermath appears to show flames flickering around debris and chunks of pavement, with people milling around the area.

The plane looked to have fallen just metres from homes and cars, but Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters that there appeared to be no casualties on the ground.

Speaking from the scene, DeSantis described the crash as “cataclysmic” and said the plane “looked like a missile going down, and left a big crater on the side of the road”.

EUFOR confirms Chinook CH-47 helicopter crash in Bosnia, with four Italian nationals confirmed dead.

Four people belonging to the European Union Force in Bosnia (EUFOR) have been killed after an Italian military helicopter conducting a training operation crashed.

EUFOR said a CH-47 Chinook helicopter crashed during “routine training” in the Brcko region on Thursday, about 180km (110 miles) north of Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo.

A total of 11 people were injured in the crash, EUFOR said, adding that all the injured are receiving treatment and are in stable condition.

The Italian government said in a statement that all those on board the military helicopter were its nationals.

The victims were two soldiers and two Red Cross volunteers, according to the Italian defence ministry.

“At this moment of immense grief, my thoughts go first and foremost to the families of our fallen, to whom I extend my personal condolences and those of the entire defence establishment,” Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said.

Wreckage

Bosnian media outlets published photos of the wreckage showing the helicopter overturned on the ground in a flat field.

A spokesman for Brcko hospital told the AFP news agency that there were 15 people on board at the time of the crash, which initially killed three people.

“Twelve people were transported to our hospital. Unfortunately, a fourth person succumbed to injuries in the hospital,” the spokesman said.

“EUFOR is conducting a full and thorough investigation of the incident and will release more information as it is verified, and when appropriate,” the force said in a statement.

EUFOR, which has between 1,000 and 1,500 personnel, has been deployed in Bosnia since 2004, when it replaced a NATO peacekeeping force that had been in the country since the Bosnian War ended in 1995. The mission oversees the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the three-year war.

A commercial airline pilot told the Mirror that falling asleep in the cockpit was common due to the long hours that aviators are required to work, following a damning European Cockpit Association report

Pilots are falling asleep in the cockpit because they’re so overworked, a damning new report claims. A survey of 7,200 pilots commissioned by the European Cockpit Association (ECA) warned of tiredness leading to “micro-sleeps in the cockpit”. One pilot told the Mirror that falling asleep while flying was common, but claimed that aviation insiders ‘do not care’.

The ECA has argued that there was “insufficient rest to prevent cumulative fatigue” and flight duties extended “beyond legal maximums”. The report suggests fatigue is “underreported across the industry”. “Airlines’ reporting systems are often seen as neither effective nor trusted, and a substantial share of pilots fly fatigued because of fear of a punitive reaction from their airline,” it noted, warning that the situation was particularly bad at low-cost airlines.

Ireland and Malta were identified as countries where the problem is particularly bad, but overall, more than three out of four pilots (77%) reported at least one microsleep while operating an aircraft in the four weeks before completing the survey.

One commercial airline pilot, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Mirror that he’d fallen asleep in the cockpit “many times”. “I have the responsibility of 234 souls, and I can legally work up to 14 hours straight, not including the repositioning. But after many years I realised nobody cares because, at the end of the day, no airplanes are falling from the sky,” he said.

“After many nights in-flight, you experience microsleeps from a few seconds up to two to three minutes, but you do not realise and it’s subtle because you might seem to be aware, but you are technically sleeping. It impairs your situational awareness and your judgment ability. But…as I said, nobody cares.”

Only 37% of those surveyed said that they report unfit when fatigued, while 24% confirmed flying when tired. Almost two in five reported a fear of punishment or a “retaliatory response” to reporting fatigue.

ECA president Captain Tanja Harter said: “The numbers in this report – and the lack of any meaningful improvement over the past three years – are a clear wake-up call for airlines, authorities and the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Something must change in the way Europe deals with pilot fatigue.”

BALPA, the British Airline Pilots Association, said the survey’s results were worrying and should lead to action. Joji Waites, BALPA director of flight safety, policy and regulation, said “The ECA’s survey of almost 7,200 pilots is a clear safety signal. That 24% of pilots usually continue flying rather than report themselves unfit due to fatigue is a concern. Aviation is the safest mode of transport through pilots’ expertise and professionalism in tandem with other aviation professionals; however, fatigue remains one of the most significant threats. Safety margins cannot hold if pilots are routinely rostered to the upper limits of their flight and duty time limitations (FTL).

“With almost half of pilots fearing repercussions for reporting fatigue, we fully support ECA’s call for EASA to strengthen fatigue rules and enforce non-punitive reporting and responsible calls on the use of commander’s discretion.

“BALPA thanks the ECA for the considerable work involved in gathering this data. We are still running our Realtime fatigue app to collect actionable intelligence on UK pilot fatigue, so combined with the ECA’s findings, we can create a clear picture of pilot fatigue, which will be fed into the CAA’s ongoing FTL review.”

All injured individuals were immediately transported to hospitals, civil aviation says updates to come.

One person has been killed and eight injured in an attack on Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd International Airport in the eastern city of Dammam, the country’s civil aviation authority announced.

All of the wounded, whose injuries range from minor to critical, were transported to hospitals to receive medical attention, the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said in a statement on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, two people were killed after Saudi air defences intercepted a drone that was attempting to hit a facility at Saudi Aramco’s Shaybah oilfield, the Ministry of Energy said.

It was the latest in a series of assaults on Saudi airports as conflict intensifies between Houthi forces and the Saudi-backed internationally recognised Yemeni government.

Last week, the kingdom reported that a projectile strike on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport on October 11 killed one person and injured 11. On October 10, the civil aviation authority reported that a separate attack on the same airport claimed the lives of 12 people and injured more than 300.

On Wednesday, the US State Department ordered diplomats and family members to depart from its missions in Saudi Arabia amid the ongoing Houthi attacks. There are also plans to withdraw family members from a number of other US missions in the region, US officials told Reuters.

The US embassy in Riyadh issued a security alert on Wednesday about possible further attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia.

Crew of Austrian Airlines flight OS82 decides to land in Sofia after receiving bomb threat, Bulgarian authorities say.

An Airbus A320 flight from Tel Aviv to Vienna has made an emergency landing in Bulgaria following a reported bomb threat, according to the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport.

Austrian Airlines flight OS82 was near the border with Romania when the crew received a bomb threat and decided to land in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, the Transport Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

Bulgaria’s Ministry of Defence said an air force MiG-29 fighter jet escorted the plane to Sofia airport.

Initial information showed the aircraft carried six crew members and 51 passengers, all of whom have all since disembarked, according to the Transport Ministry’s statement.

The airline told the AFP news agency that a security search of the aircraft was conducted.

“Once the search of the aircraft is complete, the passengers will be rebooked onto alternative flights as quickly as possible,” the airline said.

A crisis response team has been set up, and relevant authorities have launched an investigation into the incident, the Bulgarian Transport Ministry said.

According to aviation and flight tracking site FlightAware, Austrian Airlines 82 left the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv on Sunday at 6:46pm local time (15:46 GMT) and landed about three hours later at Vasil Levski airport in Sofia at 9:43pm (18:43 GMT).

Flightradar24 data showed it entered Romanian airspace at about 9:10pm (18:10 GMT) before turning south and heading back towards Bulgaria.

Information from the flight-tracking platform ADS-B Exchange indicates the aircraft was transmitting squawk code 7700 – a signal for a general emergency – at around the same time.

Flydubai incident

Last month, a Flydubai plane carrying 174 passengers was on its way from the United Arab Emirates to Tel Aviv when a co-pilot allegedly attacked the pilot with an axe in an attempt to crash the plane.

The aircraft plunged about 17,000 feet (5,180 metres) before it was brought back under control by other Flydubai pilots after passengers and other crew subdued the alleged attacker.

The flight was diverted and forced to make an emergency landing at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk, northwestern Saudi Arabia.

Authorities in the UAE said the co-pilot was on a “suicide” mission to crash the plane at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv.

The co-pilot, Hamam Al-Hammami, an Omani national, has since been charged with terrorism offences in the UAE.

The Israeli government responded to the incident by ordering checks on the identities of all pilots flying into the country.

German authorities briefly closed an airport and scrambled fighter jets to escort a passenger plane on Tuesday following an emergency alert indicating a hijacking was taking place on board. However, the alert had been accidentally triggered by a radio “malfunction”.

Corendon Airlines said its Boeing 737-800, which was en route from the Greek holiday island of Corfu to Nuremberg, Germany, sent out an emergency code while it was flying over Croatia “due to a brief malfunction in the radio communication system”.

In a statement, the airline said that “no emergency situation occurred”, and the 178 passengers, flight crew and aircraft had not been in danger at any point. The plane landed safely in Nuremberg.

What happened?

German police said Corendon Airlines flight XR456 “inadvertently” sent out an emergency “squawk” alert with the code 7500 while flying over Croatia on Tuesday.

A squawk is a four-digit code a pilot sends via the jet’s transponder to air traffic control. The code 7500 tells air traffic controllers that a hijacking is in progress.

However, air traffic controllers were unable to make contact with the pilots or crew, causing the alarm to be raised further. It is unclear why this happened.

“The aircraft could no longer be reached by radio to clarify the situation”, prompting warnings to be activated in several European countries, police said.

A Rafale fighter jet was scrambled from Croatia to intercept the Boeing passenger jet, while the German military also dispatched warplanes.

Police cordoned off the Albrecht Dürer airport in Nuremberg as a precaution until they knew the reason the pilot had sent the hijack alert.

Police spokesman Michael Petzold explained that authorities had “received a code directly from the cockpit that suggested a hijacking”.

“Since we were then unable to reach the cockpit, and the tower was also unable to contact the cockpit, we had to assume the worst – that it might indeed be a hijacking,” Petzold said.

The incident disrupted flights, with six flights delayed and two inbound flights diverted to other airports as a precaution, a Nuremberg airport spokesperson said.

Why are aviation authorities so concerned?

The hijack scare has come amid heightened concerns about aviation security after the copilot on board a Flydubai jet bound for Israel from Dubai attacked the captain with an emergency crash axe, forcing the flight to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on September 30.

On Friday, the United Arab Emirates’ prosecutor general said the copilot was on a “suicide” mission to crash the plane at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv and called the incident a “terrorist attack”.

Also, before the false hijack alert in the early hours of Tuesday, flights had been briefly disrupted at Nuremberg ‌airport after pilots reported suspected drone sightings.

Authorities across Europe have already stepped up surveillance of the skies in recent weeks after a series of mostly mysterious drone incidents and concerns about Russian hybrid warfare.

Western nations, including Germany, have accused Moscow of launching a campaign of sabotage, espionage and disruption to undermine European support for Ukraine and destabilise the continent.

Several German airports have had to suspend operations for brief periods in recent months due to drone activity, with suspicion often falling on Russia.

Last month, the German government blamed Russia for an attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle airport in August using a drone laden with explosives. Berlin closed the Russian consulate among other measures.

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the allegations, saying Berlin “fabricated” the evidence. However, in light of the concerns, NATO’s top general told the Warsaw Security Forum earlier this week that the alliance has a new war plan for countering a Russian attack on its members, embedding lessons learned from the Ukrainian front lines.

How common are radio glitches and false hijack alerts?

Radio glitches are common, but incidents rarely escalate to major security events because pilots use back-up radios to communicate with air traffic controllers when they lose communication signals.

In 2019, a pilot flying an Air Europa jet from Amsterdam to Madrid accidentally transmitted hijack alert 7500. For half an hour, aviation authorities thought the alarm was a genuine emergency and followed safety protocols, which disrupted flights and led to the evacuation of part of Schipol airport in the Netherlands.

In 2011, a flight from Chicago to Germany was diverted to Toronto when a pilot spilled coffee and accidentally set off a hijack alarm. The spill caused distress signals to go out, including the 7500 transponder code.

US, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand among countries urging citizens to avoid travel to Kingdom.

Several countries have warned their citizens against travel to Saudi Arabia following a series of Houthi attacks on airports in the kingdom.

On Monday, Australia and New Zealand became the latest to issue advisories against travelling to the kingdom, following similar warnings from the United States, Canada, the UK, South Korea, and Japan.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Australians should avoid King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and “reconsider” travel to other Saudi airports.

New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade urged citizens not to travel to the Saudi capital’s main gateway and the provinces of Najran, Jazan and Asir for any reason, and to avoid “non-essential” travel to Saudi Arabia as a whole.

The US embassy in Riyadh on Sunday advised US citizens to reconsider travel to the kingdom, citing the threat of attacks by Iran and the Iranian-backed Houthis.

Global Affairs Canada issued an advisory against non-essential travel to any part of Saudi Arabia.

South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs recommended that its citizens in Saudi Arabia leave unless they are on essential business and advised anyone planning to travel to the kingdom to cancel their trip.

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office urged citizens to avoid travel to Jeddah and Dammam, and to all airports apart from Medina International Airport, except for essential reasons.

The warnings come as Saudi Arabia reels from five attacks on its airports in less than a week.

One person was killed and 11 others were injured on Sunday when a projectile struck King Khalid International Airport, according to Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA).

A Houthi strike on the same airport on Saturday killed 13 people and injured more than 300 others, marking the deadliest attack on Saudi Arabia in more than a decade.

The Houthis claimed responsibility for all four strikes on Saudi airports before Sunday’s attack, which has yet to be claimed by any group.

King Khalid international airport and King Fahd international airport in Dammam remain closed following the attacks, causing significant disruption to aviation across the Middle East.

The attacks have also disrupted flights to and from King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah.

More than 150 flights were cancelled and 374 flights were delayed at the Jeddah airport on Sunday, according to the flight tracking website Flightradar24.

Brendan Sobie, an independent analyst and consultant in Singapore, said it was too early to predict the ramifications of the attacks for aviation across the region and beyond.

“As has been the case with the Iran war and the impact from that crisis on the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain, the impact of this latest crisis really depends on how long it lasts, how long Riyadh airport remains closed, and how long and to what extent are the restrictions once it reopens,” Sobie told Al Jazeera.