Seven reported bomb threats forced a series of diversions, inspections and emergency responses across European aviation on Tuesday, yet the final outcome was strikingly consistent: authorities found no explosives on any of the affected aircraft.

Early accounts varied over both the number of flights and the route of an aircraft checked in Sofia. Initial reports described four affected planes, including services from London Heathrow, Copenhagen and Manchester, as well as a flight initially said to have arrived from Israel.¹ Later reporting, citing Bulgarian officials, said the Sofia flight had come from Bergamo, Italy, while a separate alert involved a plane from Dublin, bringing the total to seven.²

The disruption was nevertheless real. A LOT Polish Airlines flight from Heathrow to Warsaw was diverted to Modlin, where 181 people were aboard; the airport temporarily closed as emergency teams responded. Its spokesperson said passengers were evacuated, the aircraft was searched and “Nothing was found,” before operations resumed.³ An SAS service from Copenhagen landed normally in Warsaw before its own checks.

In Murcia, the Ryanair flight from Manchester was met by police, firefighters and bomb-disposal personnel. A passenger said travellers had not been informed during the flight and were later told to leave their belongings as they evacuated: “Then the fire engines turned up, the bomb squad turned up and we were asked to evacuate.”² Spanish authorities subsequently ruled out explosives and reopened the airport.

Ryanair services arriving in Rome from Lisbon and Dublin were also searched, as were flights connected to Sofia. The wider episode followed a separate Wizz Air diversion from London Luton to Budapest the previous day, also after a bomb alert. Across the cases, the common response was precautionary disruption followed by clearance — a contrast between the scale of the security operation and the absence of any device.¹