Fear, sniffer dogs and fighter jets after bomb threats hit European flights
Josephine de La Bruyere and Amelia Nierenberg
asserted
threats → fear → flights
Nicola Timpone was halfway through an early-morning Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome on Nov 5 when he got the first inkling that his trip would not end smoothly.
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trip → get → inkling
Timpone, a 62-year-old Italian passenger, said he had heard the pilot say that a technical problem required a diversion to Paris.
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problem → say → Paris
After a while, he said, the pilot announced that they were actually landing to refuel at another French airport.
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they → say → airport
But a startling scene outside Timpone’s window made clear that it was more than a pit stop.
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was → make → stop
“I saw a military jet,” he said in a telephone interview on Nov 5.
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he → see → Nov
“Some of us realised that something was wrong.”
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something → realise → us
More than two dozen flights with hundreds of passengers were disrupted this week after European airlines were targeted by bomb threats, officials said.
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officials → disrupt → threats
Planes in Italy, Poland, Spain and elsewhere were grounded or diverted as the authorities scrambled fighter jets to escort the aircraft.
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authorities → ground → aircraft
After checks, all the threats turned out to be hoaxes, officials said.
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officials → turn → checks
But some travellers said they had experienced a real – if brief – jolt of alarm.
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they → say → alarm
At one point, Timpone said, he saw Aer Lingus cabin crew members opening all the window shades and asking everyone not to use their cellphones.
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members → say → cellphones
“We were going down and saw all along the runway a deployment of police forces, firefighters, ambulances,” he said from a gym at a French airbase where he and about 150 other passengers were gathered after the flight was diverted.
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flight → go → airbase
“That really scared us.”
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That → scar → us
Neither the identities of those making the threats nor their motives were immediately clear.
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identities → make → threats
Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the European Union’s commissioner for transport, said in a statement on Nov 5 that it was too early to conclude that the episodes were linked.
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episodes → say → Nov
Analysts said that the volume of threats reported over a few days suggested that at least some were connected.
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some → say → days
Mateusz Bojarski, 28, was on a LOT Polish Airlines flight with his girlfriend, heading from Warsaw to Paris for a romantic weekend, when an announcement over the plane’s intercom said that the aircraft could not take off for safety reasons.
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aircraft → head → reasons
The plane taxied to the end of the runway and waited for emergency services, he said, and firefighters and police officers inspected the aircraft with sniffer dogs.
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firefighters → taxi → dogs
“We weren’t so scared,” Bojarski said on Nov 5 in a direct message on social media.
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Bojarski → say → media
He said he had seen reports this week of similar bomb threat scares.
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he → say → scares
Other passengers also seemed calm – if frustrated about potential delays and disruptions, he said.
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he → seem → delays
Three hours after their originally scheduled departure time, he said, they were able to take off.
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they → schedule → time
When Margherita Cerrai and Giovanni Martinelli, Italian graduate students on a Wizz Air flight from Milan, landed at an out-of-the-way runway in Bucharest, Romania, fire trucks and masked, armed Romanian law enforcement agents met their plane.
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trucks → land → plane
But they did not panic, they said.
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they → panic → ?
The fake bomb threats were “something we had heard about all day yesterday”, Cerrai said.
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Cerrai → hear → ?
“The fact that there had been so many bomb threats, in my opinion, defused the fear a little,” Martinelli said.
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Martinelli → defuse → fear
Other passengers were already in the air when the threats came in.
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threats → come → air
John May, 45, a passenger on the Aer Lingus plane from Dublin to Rome, said on Nov 5 that it was about one hour into the three-hour flight when the pilot asked the cabin crew to immediately join him in the cockpit.
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pilot → say → cockpit
The crew came out looking a bit shaken, May said in a direct message on social media.
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May → come → media
“That got people worried,” said May, who had been traveling to celebrate his 20th wedding anniversary.
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who → get → anniversary
His wife was worried but he was not, May said, because the engines sounded normal and the plane was not descending unusually fast.
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plane → say → ?
After the pilot announced that there was a bomb threat, he tried to reassure passengers by saying that it was not a credible one, May recalled.
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May → announce → passengers
Still, the French authorities diverted the plane to a military air base in Evreux, about 80km north-west of Paris.
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authorities → divert → Paris
The office of France’s prime minister said in a statement that he had ordered fighter jets to intercept and escort the Aer Lingus flight because the pilot had not “cooperated as expected with the authorities”.
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pilot → say → authorities
It was not immediately clear what that meant.
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that → mean → what
The Evreux prosecutor said in a statement that he had opened an investigation.
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he → say → investigation
At the base, passengers waited two hours on the plane as a bomb squad checked their bags, May said.
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May → wait → bags
Afterwards, passengers disembarked 10 at a time as officers and sniffer dogs checked them and their bags, according to Timpone, the other Aer Lingus passenger.
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officers → disembark → Timpone
Buses took them to another location on the base, where they were checked again.
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they → take → base
…and 4 more, not listed.
The Aporia
