In brief
An Austrian Airlines Airbus A320 en route from Tel Aviv to Vienna was forced to divert to Sofia after a bomb threat was reported. The 51‑passenger, six‑crew aircraft landed safely at Vasil Levski airport, where authorities conducted a thorough inspection. Bulgarian air forces dispatched a MiG‑29 to escort the airliner, and no injuries were reported as passengers were evacuated. The incident follows a wave of aviation security scares, including a recent cockpit assault on a Flydubai flight that ended in Saudi Arabia.
In a hold‑up of international air travel, an Austrian Airlines flight on the Tel Aviv‑to‑Vienna route was diverted to Sofia after a bomb threat was reported.
The aircraft, a single‑aisle Airbus A320 carrying 51 passengers and six crew, made an emergency landing at Vasil Levski airport in Bulgaria roughly three hours after take‑off. Bulgarian air forces promptly scrambled a MiG‑29 fighter jet to escort the plane, and authorities secured the aircraft before conducting a full security search, during which no explosive device was found.
There were no injuries and the evacuation was carried out smoothly, although investigators are still probing the source of the threat. Austrian Airlines confirmed that an external threat was indeed raised, but the airline has not disclosed further details about the alert.
This incident comes in the wake of a series of aviation security alerts, most recently involving a cockpit assault on a Flydubai flight that ended in Saudi Arabia after the crew overpowered the hijacker. In a similar incident earlier this month, Croatian and German air forces scrambled jets to respond to a fake hijack warning on a flight from Corfu to Nuremberg.
The emergency landing underscores the heightened vigilance around commercial aviation in the region, as authorities work to safeguard air routes against threats while maintaining passenger safety. Officials at the Bulgarian transport ministry said the aircraft had diverted while over the Romanian airspace before arrival in Sofia.
