A telephone call to Vienna airport triggered a bomb scare aboard an Austrian Airlines flight travelling from Tel Aviv to Vienna, forcing the aircraft to make an unscheduled landing in Bulgaria. No danger was found, and all 57 people on board were safe.
Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said on Monday that the threat had been made by phone to Vienna Airport. Austrian security services have now opened an investigation into the incident, according to Heute.
The aircraft was already flying over Romania on Sunday evening when it changed course and headed for Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, an Austrian citizen who was not on the flight had made the bomb warning.
Flight-tracking platform ADS-B Exchange reported that the plane issued an emergency signal during the diversion. The Bulgarian air force sent a fighter jet to escort the aircraft, which landed safely in Sofia at 8.42 p.m. Central European Summer Time, carrying 51 passengers and six crew members.
Once on the ground, Bulgarian security forces searched the plane, the passengers and the crew. “During the search of the affected aircraft, the passengers and the crew, no danger could be identified,” Austrian Airlines said on Monday.
The aircraft later resumed its journey the same night and arrived in Vienna in the early hours of Monday morning.
Karner praised the cooperation between Austrian and Bulgarian authorities. Speaking after a meeting with his Bulgarian counterpart, Ivan Demerdzhiev, he said: “My special thanks go to the Bulgarian security authorities for their rapid, professional and excellent cooperation. This incident once again underlines the importance of close international cooperation between our security services.”
The incident ended without injuries or arrests announced, but it left passengers shaken after a routine flight suddenly became an emergency diversion. Authorities are now working to establish who made the call and why the threat was issued.
