Bomb hoaxes ground-scramble 18 more flights as Europe spots a pattern

Another round of bomb threats rattled European aviation on Friday, hitting at least 18 flights linked to Bulgaria, Czechia, France, Italy, Hungary, Cyprus, Romania, the UK and Portugal. The aircraft all landed safely, and searches found no explosive devices. Danish police looked into a threat against Copenhagen airport, which kept operating normally.

The alerts landed heaviest around Prague, where at least nine flights were affected, according to The Guardian. Four flights over France, two heading for Sofia and a Lisbon-to-Rome service were also caught up. Hungary scrambled fighter jets three times to shadow civilian planes in its airspace, defence minister Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi said on Facebook. For all the noise, it was a sliver of the day's traffic — 0.0674% of the 26,709 flights Eurocontrol had scheduled across Europe on Friday.

It's the third wave this week. Threats on Tuesday and Thursday forced at least 35 flights to divert or be searched, and now investigators are staring at what looks like a coordinated campaign to jam up travel. Friday brought a separate spate of threats against Irish media organisations, disrupting broadcasts and sending staff out of offices while police searched newsrooms and studios.

Ireland's taoiseach, Micheál Martin, told RTÉ Radio 1 once it was back on air that the threats had to be taken seriously and were designed to sow fear and anxiety. He said they showed how easy it can be to disrupt and undermine normal life, and that European security agencies would hunt down whoever is behind them. Sky also said it received a security threat on Friday and reported it to the authorities. Earlier in the week, cyber-attacks knocked out supermarket refrigeration systems in at least seven European countries.

Investigators say they've found no evidence that a hostile terror group or a state actor such as Russia or Iran is directing the airline hoaxes, and inquiries are ongoing. Some of Thursday's threats came signed by the “fighters of the Male State” — a Russian far-right, ultranationalist and misogynistic movement founded in 2016.

Some officials suspect the disruption is tied to Europe's backing of Ukraine against the Russian invasion. Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, said authorities need more time to name culprits but the pattern is hard to ignore, telling TVE that so many incidents with the same modus operandi can't be mere coincidence. His read: Europe is facing an attempt at hybrid aggression and psychological warfare — and should brace for more.