Wave of bomb alerts on flights in Europe, two also in Rome

Tense morning in the skies of several European cities due to reports of bombs on board some scheduled flights, all of which later turned out to be false.

In Rome the alarm was raised just before 9am with an anonymous email sent to the Adr company announcing bombs on two Ryanair flights arriving from Lisbon and Dublin. Safety protocols were immediately activated and two Eurofighter fighters from the Italian Air Force also took off to escort the flight that left Dublin until it landed on the Fiumicino runway, which took place at 10.44am, one hour after the other.

At the end of the reclamation of passengers, aircraft and baggage, the alarm was lifted, but investigations by the Polaria and the postal police are underway to trace who sent that email message. An episode that occurs the day after the emails received from the principals of around 280 schools spread across Italy, causing inconvenience and evacuations of school buildings. A coincidence on which, inevitably, the attention of those who investigate will be drawn.

At the moment, investigative sources report, no connections have been ascertained with similar cases which have also been recorded today in other European cities. Two planes inspected in Warsaw, a third in Murcia, Spain. A fourth, from the Wizz Air company, took off from Bergamo and landed in Sofia. Notably, local Bulgarian media reported that a flight from Israel landed at Sofia airport after a bomb threat was received via email. One instead left London Heathrow with 181 people on board and another flight from Copenhagen landed in Warsaw.

Meanwhile, a Ryanair plane from Manchester made an emergency landing at Murcia airport in southern Spain due to another threat. There were 121 people on board that flight (114 passengers and 17 crew members). The international airport in the region in south-eastern Spain reopened air traffic at 1pm, therefore remaining at a standstill for around two hours. Once the security checks were completed, without any anomalies being detected, the airport was reactivated for normal operations.

The incidents occurred the day after the emergency landing in Budapest - escorted by a Hungarian fighter - of a Wizz Air flight coming from London Luton, again due to the threat of a bomb. And the false alarms also concerned the cruise ship 'Crown Iris', flying the Panamanian flag, moored in the port of Syros, in the Cyclades and headed to Haifa, Israel, with 940 passengers and 597 crew members on board. The alarm was triggered after an unknown person contacted the commander via chf radio, but the checks carried out by the Coast Guard gave negative results.