Austrian Airlines flight diverts to Bulgaria after reported bomb threat

An Austrian Airlines flight from Tel Aviv to Vienna made an emergency landing in Bulgaria on Sunday night after its crew received a reported bomb threat, Bulgarian authorities said. A fighter jet escorted the plane to Sofia, where all 57 people on board disembarked.

The Airbus A320 was near Romania when the crew decided to divert, according to Bulgaria’s Transport Ministry. Bulgaria’s Defence Ministry said an air force MiG-29 escorted the aircraft to Vasil Levski airport in the capital. No injuries were reported.

Austrian Airlines confirmed that a threat had been made but did not give further details, the BBC reported. An airline spokesperson told AFP that the flight carried 51 passengers and six crew members. Authorities searched the aircraft after it landed, and the Transport Ministry said a crisis response team had been set up and an investigation had begun.

“Once the search of the aircraft is complete, the passengers will be rebooked onto alternative flights as quickly as possible,” the airline told AFP, according to Al Jazeera. The sources did not report a result from the search or say when passengers would continue their journeys.

Flight-tracking site FlightAware showed Austrian Airlines flight OS82 leaving Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport at 6:46 p.m. local time and landing in Sofia at 9:43 p.m., Al Jazeera reported. Data from Flightradar24 showed the plane entering Romanian airspace at about 9:10 p.m. before turning south toward Bulgaria. Al Jazeera also reported that data from ADS-B Exchange indicated the aircraft was transmitting squawk code 7700, a general emergency signal, around that time.

The diversion follows another emergency involving a flight bound for Tel Aviv last month. A Flydubai co-pilot allegedly attacked the pilot with an axe in an attempt to crash the aircraft, which was carrying 174 passengers from the United Arab Emirates, Al Jazeera reported. Passengers and crew subdued the alleged attacker, and the plane landed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

According to Al Jazeera, UAE authorities said the co-pilot intended to crash the plane at Ben Gurion Airport. The outlet reported that the co-pilot, identified as Omani national Hamam Al-Hammami, has since been charged with terrorism offences in the UAE. Israel responded by ordering checks on the identities of all pilots flying into the country, Al Jazeera reported.

The BBC also reported that Croatia and Germany scrambled fighter jets last week after a commercial flight from Corfu, Greece, to Nuremberg, Germany, accidentally transmitted a hijacking alert. Neither that alert nor the Flydubai incident has been linked in the sources to Sunday’s diversion.