Bomb Threats Spread From European Flights to Newsrooms

Staff at Ireland’s RTÉ returned to work after police searched its Dublin campus for more than three hours. The newsroom was one of several media offices threatened on Friday, as bomb warnings continued to disrupt European flights. At least 17 flights had been disrupted by midday GMT, while no explosives or injuries had been reported. The threats have turned a week of flight alerts into wider disruption, now targeting newsrooms too. ^2,9

The newsroom warnings arrived by email. RTÉ, Sky in Britain, Bulgaria’s Nova TV and Irish outlets including Newstalk and the Irish Independent were among those targeted. RTÉ switched some programmes to recorded content, while police searched its campus with dogs. Nova’s staff also evacuated, then returned after checks. In the skies, a Wizz Air flight from Prague to Rome diverted to Venice. Fighter jets escorted three threatened passenger planes through Hungarian airspace. ^2,8,9

Those evacuations and diversions followed repeated alerts, but the response does not mean officials found bombs. Eurocontrol counted threats against 14 flights on Thursday, just 0.05% of nearly 26,300 flights in its network that day. Still, airlines and broadcasters cannot safely ignore a warning. They must protect passengers and staff, even when a message may be a hoax. Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin said the threats were designed to disrupt daily life and spread fear. ^1,3,2

Fear has also grown because authorities have not identified the sender or confirmed that flight and newsroom threats came from one coordinated operation. Ireland’s government said a coordinated campaign seemed likely, while stressing that it did not know who was responsible. Emails signed “Mikhail Andropov” claimed a link to the flight threats, but the name has not been verified. Police in Ireland and across Europe are investigating. No explosives had been found in the reported searches. ^10,2,11