Hoax bomb threats target European airlines again within a week

Hoax bomb threats have targeted European airlines and airports for the second time in a week, leading to flight diversions and security searches. On Monday, a Wizz Air flight travelling from London Luton Airport to Sofia was escorted by a Hungarian fighter jet to Budapest after a mid-air bomb threat. Two days ago, seven European flights, including two from the UK, were searched following bomb threats. No explosives were found on any of the planes.

In one incident, a person named Noble said passengers remained on board for two-and-a-half hours while police and military personnel carried out checks, including searches with sniffer dogs. They were later informed they would be taken to an airport in Paris and transferred to another plane to fly on to Rome.

Philip Baum, professor of aviation security at the University of Coventry, said the industry "faces multiple bomb threats every single day" but he had been "surprised" by this week's incidents. He said a flight is diverted "only when the threat is credible and the authorities believe there is a potential of explosive device on board". He warned that "if you issue enough hoax threats, then complacency could set in and a real threat could be ignored - or they could be a diversion".

Marco Chan, an aviation expert at Kingston University, told the BBC the threats were "most likely a hoax, but the system is right to treat it as real". He said some experts view them as "possibly part of a pattern of cheap, deniable disruption" to air travel. Hoaxes can also come from copycats, he said, but "three days of incidents is too small a sample to separate coordination from contagion".

Source: BBC World.