Audio Briefing: Hoax Bomb Threats Ground Europe's Skies in Third Wave

PARIS — At least 18 flights across Europe were hit by hoax bomb threats on Friday, November 6, the third wave of a campaign that has now targeted dozens of passenger jets in a single week. Every aircraft landed safely and every search came back empty — yet the disruption keeps spreading, from Prague to Paris, Lisbon to Sofia, and now to newsrooms themselves.

This briefing traces the week's pattern: Tuesday's seven threatened flights, including a Wizz Air service diverted to Budapest and a Ryanair jet escorted into Rome by Italian Eurofighters; Thursday's 20-plus flights; and Friday's 18, with nine at Prague alone and fighter jets scrambled three times over Hungary. It also covers the new front that opened on Friday, when bomb threats emailed to newsrooms forced evacuations at Ireland's RTE, Britain's Sky and Bulgaria's NOVA TV, and the one arrest so far — a man detained at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

Investigators say there is no evidence the hoaxes are orchestrated by a terror group or a state actor, even as the threats are described as apparently coordinated. Some messages were signed by "fighters of the Male State", a name matching a far-right movement in Russia, while another purported to come from an anti-feminist group. The threats land as European officials warn of a wider hybrid campaign, with supermarket refrigeration systems hacked this week and drone incursions adding to the strain. Security experts are due to meet in Brussels next week to agree a response. Read more of our world news coverage, and our report on the unrest that swept France last month.