Flights across Europe have been impacted by bomb threats for the second time this week.More than 10 flights have reportedly been affected today, with some diverted
In Prague, Czech police say no explosives were found aboard four flights they have received following threats about an "improvised explosive device" BBC reported.
Earlier an aircraft was escorted into Rome Fiumicino Airport by Italian Air Force jets, while the Bulgarian military says it deployed its Air Force fighter jets to escort three aircraft to Sofia
Air traffic control messages analysed by BBC Verify show one diverted aircraft - travelling from Dublin to Rome - was alerted to a potential threat by air traffic control
On Tuesday, at least seven flights were hit by similar threats - no explosives were found
An aviation safety expert has told BBC Verify this week’s bomb threats are "most likely a hoax, but the system is right to treat it as real".
Marco Chan, senior lecturer in aviation operations at Kingston University and former Cathay Pacific pilot, says hoax threats are seen by some experts as "possibly part of a pattern of cheap, deniable disruption" to air travel.
He adds that "hoax waves can also come from copycats or a handful of individuals", but that "three days of incidents is too small a sample to separate co-ordination from contagion".
Chan says the "cost to the sender is almost nothing" compared to the significant impact on airlines, airports and air forces.
"That asymmetry is the point of the tactic, whatever the motive."
In this case of this morning’s Aer Lingus flight which was diverted to a military airfield in northern France, Chan says that "diversion, escort, and isolation" at a military site shows the "high cost of false alarms to avoid a single missed attack".
There were no explosives found on the four planes heading to Prague which received threats, a police spokesperson tells CTK news agency.
Earlier, we reported that Czech police were preparing to receive four flights, after threats about an "improvised explosive device".
