More than 20 flights across Europe were disrupted this week due to bomb threats. Here’s what we know

More than 20 flights across Europe were affected by a series of false bomb threats this week, disrupting travel plans and in some cases forcing countries to scramble fighter jets.

More than a dozen flights were affected on Thursday, including four in the Czech Republic and two in Italy. This is the second day this week of widespread flight suspensions due to bomb threats.

At least seven planes and one cruise ship received bomb threats on Tuesday.

Here’s what we know so far:

It’s not entirely clear, but Czech and Italian authorities say it was created by email.

A representative from Prague’s Václav Havel Airport told CNN that the threat that a bomb would be placed on Flight 4 was made in an anonymous email.

A Czech police spokesperson told CNN that the email was addressed to the same airport, adding that similar emails had been sent to other airports in Europe.

The Italian flight threat came in an email from an anti-feminist group calling itself “Men’s Nation” to a logistics hub company affiliated with Rome Fiumicino Airport.

The email, first published by CNN affiliate Sky TG24, falsely claimed that “explosive devices” had been placed on the two flights, one from Helsinki and one from Dublin. An airport spokesperson confirmed to CNN that the screenshots are genuine.

The International Counter-Terrorism Center, a Netherlands-based think tank, said “Mare Nation” was founded in Russia in 2016 as a misogynist movement and later emerged as a vocal supporter of the Ukraine war. Russian courts banned the group in 2021, labeling it an extremist organization.

All airports in Europe plan and carry out drills to prepare for such incidents. Keith Jeffries, former director of federal security at LAX Airport, told CNN that all airports “have a bomb threat management plan and are trained on that plan,” so they can make decisions in seconds.

The bottom line is that aviation authorities never ignore bomb threats, Jeffries said.

Again, at this stage it is still unclear who is behind the threat. At this stage, no official organization or nation has been identified by European countries. The European Union said it was too early to determine whether the incidents were related.

Security analysts have suggested this could be part of a broader hybrid campaign or series of malicious hoaxes.

Eric Schouten, head of aviation security group Diyami, suggested that saboteurs working on behalf of the Russian state could be responsible.

“This fits into the narrative of a Russian state actor trying to disrupt Europe, from trains to food infrastructure, like refrigerators being hacked, to all kinds of other operations,” Schouten said, according to Reuters. He also pointed out that many of the affected countries are supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Britain’s Transport Secretary described the threat as a “malicious hoax”.

Heidi Alexander said in an interview with British media that the flight disruptions “trigger established processes for dealing with disinformation and malicious threats, which is exactly what this threat is.”