The bomb scares continue, which already caused chaos in the skies of Europe yesterday. A plane coming from Rome was forced to carry out a security operation at Lisbon airport this morning: the Ryanair flight landed in the Portuguese capital at 8 this morning. The alert was received by the Public Security Police via a phone call from a law enforcement officer, whose identity was verified by members of the Judicial Police. While another bomb threat was triggered for a Wizzair Prague-Rome flight. According to what we learn, the report of the bomb on board reached Prague. The flight, which should have arrived in the capital at 11am, was diverted to Venice where it landed.
The alarms, however, do not stop in Italy: only today did the authorities make it known that similar threats were also recorded for four planes flying over France, for eight flights at Prague airport and for air traffic in Copenhagen.
Since this morning, 18 flights have been involved in the bomb threat emergency in Europe. The Guardian reports this, specifying that these are three flights that landed at Madrid airport, of which no other details are known, the Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome, which made an emergency landing in Évreux, France, the Fr6410 Ryanair flight from Madrid to Sofia, the Fr3606 Ryanair flight from Copenhagen to Sofia, the Fr1730 Ryanair flight from London Stansted to Sofia, which landed in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and Lot Polish Airlines flight Lo235 from Warsaw to Brussels. Also affected are flights W46387 WizzAir from Milan Malpensa to Warsaw-Okęcie, redirected to Vienna, Ay1761 FinnAir from Helsinki to Rome Fiumicino, Ay1471 FinnAir from Helsinki to Vienna, W43064 WizzAir from Milan-Malpensa to Bucharest, A3552 Aegean Airlines from Thessaloniki to Milan-Malpensa and Fr8953 Ryanair from Porto to Milan-Malpensa (12.17), in addition to the four flights landed in Prague, as reported by the police of the Czech Republic without other details.
The Milan Prosecutor's Office, directed by Marcello Viola, has also opened a file, at the moment without any hypothesis of crime or suspects, after receiving the first two information from Polaria on the reports relating to the emails about false bomb alerts on yesterday's flights. Reports regarding Malpensa airport and also Linate airport. The Milan Prosecutor's Office, also through Digos, will carry out liaison work with other Prosecutor's Offices, such as that of Busto Arsizio (Varese), which has already opened an investigation. The Milanese anti-terrorism pool could investigate these facts later.
"Discord and panic are being spread to direct the future political competition. Europe is in difficulty, if we scratch things we can obtain advantages", said General Vincenzo Camporini, former Chief of the Defense Staff. How could this be resolved soon? "They cannot be resolved, unfortunately they cannot be controlled, they may have an organized cause but then they can trigger continuous imitation. A child can easily send an email, which cannot be ignored. These are situations in which 99.9% nothing happens but 0.1% remains and we have to react on that."
Two Spanish NH-90 helicopters from the Paznic detachment deployed in Romania as part of a NATO mission were activated for a real alert, for the first time, following the detection of unidentified drones within allied airspace. The drones disappeared before neutralization was necessary. According to the Defense General Staff, this event represents a "significant milestone", being the first Alpha Scramble (take-off on alert) carried out by a Spanish helicopter employed in an international NATO mission.
A case for causing an alarm, currently against unknown persons, was opened by the Busto Arsizio (Varese) prosecutor's office after the two bomb scares which yesterday involved as many flights arriving at Milan Malpensa airport. A flight coming from Thessaloniki and landing at 9.33 am and another which took off from Porto and arrived at 10.25 am were targeted. The safety procedures were immediately activated and the checks gave negative results: no device was found.
The bomb threat for Wizzair plane 46136, diverted to Venice after leaving Prague this morning and heading to Rome Fiumicino, has been lifted. At the end of the security operations, after all 190 passengers had been disembarked, as well as eight crew members, the emergency ended at the Marco Polo lagoon airport.
Hungary - as reported by the Guardian - raised its military jets to monitor three civilian planes after bomb alerts were received. The first involved a direct flight from Brussels to Sofia, and two others from Prague to Cyprus and Bucharest.
The Irish police had already taken into account the risk of false bomb threats in their preparations for the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU and are applying the required protocols. The Dublin government reported this in a note released by Prime Minister Micheál Martin after the threats that this morning led to the evacuation of the offices of the RTÉ broadcaster and the Irish Independent newspaper.
“We take these threats very seriously. Any threat against civilians is absolutely unacceptable and our top priority is to ensure the safety of citizens,” said European Commission spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen. "The main responsibility for investigating and shedding light on these events lies with the Member States", clarified the spokeswoman, explaining that "our task at the moment is to coordinate the Member States to have a complete picture of what is happening".
The alert to TV and newspaper offices in Ireland "comes in the wake of disruptions caused to air traffic in Europe through similar threats which appear likely to be the result of coordinated action. Police forces, in collaboration with the Ministry of Defense and our cybersecurity and aviation authorities, are working to identify those responsible". Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin wrote this in an official note.
"Pro-Russian hackers have already claimed responsibility for the attacks on supermarkets in recent days. We do not yet have proof for these latest alarms. We know well that Moscow will never declare a military war on Europe. But we also know that it will try to destabilize, create panic and problems in daily life", said Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani.
The Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, in relation to the wave of false alarms which in recent days have involved dozens of flights across Europe, declared in the morning: "We are faced with an attempt at hybrid aggression and psychological warfare" and "it is clear that there are cells in the world that act to sabotage Europe".
