SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Paris: An Airbus A320 flying from Dublin to Rome was diverted to France’s Evreux airbase following a bomb threat, the latest in a series of threats targeting flights in Europe, the office of French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Thursday.
Lecornu’s office, which had been monitoring the situation, later said the Aer Lingus plane had landed safely at Evreux in Normandy.
Separately, a Finnair plane travelling from Helsinki to Rome was safely escorted to the Italian capital’s Fiumicino airport by airforce jets on Thursday following a bomb alert, a source close to the matter said.
Flight tracking sites showed the Aer Lingus Dublin-Rome flight was approaching Paris when it turned sharply off its trajectory and made several loops before heading towards Evreux and landing.
The 151 passengers and six crew had been moved to a safe place and a bomb squad unit was in place, Lecornu’s office said.
At least seven flights and a cruise ship in Europe received bomb threats on Tuesday, causing disruption at airports, although no devices were discovered. The flights included Polish airline LOT, Scandinavian Airlines, Wizz Air and Ryanair.
The hoax threats came a day after a plane headed for Bulgaria was diverted to Hungary after receiving a similar bomb threat while in the air. No one was injured.
Such threats aren’t a new phenomenon but come at a time of increased geopolitical tensions and signs of “disruption”, such as attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems, drone incursions in Europe and mysterious triggers to alert apps – even as authorities have warned that hybrid threats abound.
