On the 3rd (local time), reports of explosives were received one after another from seven passenger planes flying over Europe, causing an uproar as the planes made emergency landings and fighter jets were scrambled.
According to Reuters and the British daily Guardian, a bomb threat warning was issued at 9:54 a.m. on a Boeing 737 MAX passenger plane belonging to Poland's LOT Airlines, which departed London Heathrow Airport and was heading to Warsaw Chopin Airport, and landed at Modlin Airport on the outskirts of Warsaw seven minutes later.
Authorities closed Modlin Airport and checked the plane, but no explosives were found. The 181 people on board the plane took a bus to Chopin Airport after safety measures were completed.
On this morning, a Scandinavian Airlines passenger plane flying from Copenhagen, Denmark, to Warsaw received a report of an explosive and was searched after landing at Chopin Airport, the airport said.
On this day, reports were received via email that explosives were present on passenger planes operating between Manchester, England, Murcia, Spain, Lisbon, Portugal, and Rome, Italy, Dublin, Ireland, and Rome, Bergamo, Italy, and Sofia, Bulgaria, and Dublin and Sofia. The airliner heading to Rome landed under Italian Air Force fighter escort.
Among these, the passenger plane between Bergamo and Sofia belongs to Hungary's Wizz Air, and the rest belong to Irish Ryanair.
As a result of the search, there were no explosives and no force claiming to be behind it was found. It has not been confirmed whether there is a connection between the seven bomb reports received that day.
A search operation was conducted on the Greek island of Syros after an unidentified person claimed to have planted explosives on the Crown Iris, a Panama-flagged cruise ship that was about to depart for Haifa, Israel.
After the attempted kidnapping of the first officer on a FlyDubai flight en route from Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Tel Aviv, Israel on September 30, reports of bombings and hijackings on flights to and from Europe have continued.
The previous day, a Wizz Air passenger plane that took off from London Luton Airport and was heading to Sofia, Bulgaria changed course due to a bomb threat and landed at Budapest Liszt Ferenc Airport, Hungary. Wizz Air flew the plane back to Sofia after confirming that there were no explosives as a result of the search.
Last month, hijacking and bombing alerts were issued on Turkye Korendon Airlines and Austrian Airlines planes, respectively, causing emergency landings.
Following the hacking of refrigeration systems at supermarkets in Europe the previous day and the threat of bombs to seven passenger planes in one day, some are suspicious that this may be a Russian operation aimed at unrest in Western society.
Eric Schoughton, CEO of Dutch security intelligence company Diami, argued, “From railways to food infrastructure, refrigerator hacking and other types of operations are occurring in line with Russia’s narrative of trying to throw Europe into chaos.”
The cyber attack, which raised the temperature of supermarket refrigerators and freezers to up to 55 degrees through remote control, was found to have occurred the day before in at least 10 countries, including Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, Estonia, Ireland, Finland, Italy, Portugal, and Germany.
Last month, a series of similar hacking incidents occurred at supermarkets across France and six grocery stores at U.S. military facilities in the United States.
Tom Hegel, a researcher at security company Sentinel, said of the three hacking incidents, "The cost is low, but it causes enormous economic damage to the target," and argued that all of them were likely committed by organizations linked to Russia.
