Ryanair flight from Dublin searched in Rome amid wave of European bomb threats

File photo of Warsaw Chopin Airport in Warsaw, Poland. Photo: Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Several passenger planes travelling across Europe were affected by suspected bomb threats on Tuesday, including a Ryanair flight from Dublin which was searched after landing in Rome.

The incidents involved flights from a number of European cities, with four aircraft making precautionary or emergency landings. No explosives were found on the planes inspected in Poland and Spain.

Two Warsaw-bound flights were targeted by bomb threats, Polish officials said. One was a Scandinavian Airlines service from Copenhagen, which landed at Warsaw Chopin Airport, while the other was a LOT Polish Airlines flight from London Heathrow.

The LOT flight, which had 181 people on board, was diverted to Warsaw Modlin Airport, where it landed safely shortly after an alert was raised at 9.54am.

The airport was closed while emergency services responded and passengers were evacuated from the Boeing 737 MAX. Security checks found no explosives, and the bomb threat was cancelled at 12.21pm. The airport subsequently resumed normal operations.

The Scandinavian Airlines flight also underwent a security inspection at Warsaw Chopin Airport, but no explosive devices were found. A runway was temporarily closed, although the airport continued operating.

In a separate incident, a Ryanair flight from Manchester made an emergency landing at Murcia Airport in south-east Spain following a bomb threat.

The 114 passengers and seven crew members disembarked while the aircraft was searched. Francisco Lucas, the Spanish government’s delegate in the Murcia region, later said the Guardia Civil had ruled out the presence of explosives and that the airport had returned to normal operations.

A passenger told the BBC the aircraft stopped “quite suddenly” after landing and was surrounded by emergency vehicles and police. She said passengers were later informed there had been a bomb threat against the plane.

Elsewhere, a flight from Bergamo in Italy was forced to land in Sofia, Bulgaria, while two Ryanair services, one from Lisbon and another from Dublin, were searched in Rome following suspected bomb threats, according to the BBC.

The incidents came a day after a Wizz Air flight travelling from London Luton to Sofia was diverted to Budapest following a bomb threat received during the flight.

The aircraft, which was escorted by a Hungarian fighter jet, landed safely in the Hungarian capital. No further details about the threat were immediately available.

 - Press Association and The Guardian