More bomb threats reported at Prague Airport, including flight to Netherlands
More bomb threats were reported on flights leaving Václav Havel Airport in Prague on Friday morning, with one of the flights involved having landed in the Netherlands. This follows a chaotic day on Thursday when over two dozen of bomb threats were reported to flights across Europe.
“Again today, there were threats to place an explosive device on board a large number of aircraft arriving at and departing from Prague Airport,” the Czech national police stated on X. “In cooperation with Prague Airport, we took the necessary security measures with minimal impact on the airport’s normal operations. We will continue to handle the matter.”
"We can confirm that we received another bomb threat this morning. It concerned flight KL1352 from Prague to Amsterdam. The aircraft landed safely at Schiphol at 10:25 a.m. Passengers and crew members were then escorted off the aircraft by the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee. The subsequent handling of the incident was carried out in accordance with the Marechaussee's established procedures," a KLM spokesperson confirmed to NL Times. The flight departed 45 minutes later and arrived 15 minutes behind schedule.
"KLM always takes every bomb threat seriously. The safety of our passengers and crew is our priority. KLM has protocols in place for these types of reports and carefully assesses each threat based on the available information. For security reasons, KLM does not share details about the contents of these protocols or how threats are assessed," the spokesperson added.
Czech police were investigating threats against nine aircraft at Prague Airport on Friday. Four were arriving flights, and five were departing flights. All nine aircraft were on the ground and undergoing inspections during the morning, according to airport spokesperson Denisa Hejtmánková, quoted by Czech media outlet CNN Prima News. The airport has said that the incident it is not affecting operations.
Emergency services in the Czech capital already had their hands full due to a power outage on Friday. Authorities are not speculating that the issue was related to a hack. The technical issues affected 70,000 energy consumers.
Dozens of flights were affected by bomb threats this week, at least two dozen of these occurring on Thursday. The incidents involved airlines from several European countries and resulted in emergency landings, diversions, fighter jet escorts and security searches.
This included KLM flight KL461, which departed Amsterdam Schiphol at 4:40 p.m. on Thursday, heading for Tel Aviv with a scheduled stopover in Bucharest. At approximately 7:30 p.m., KLM received a bomb threat concerning the aircraft.
The aircraft landed safely at Henri Coandă International Airport in Bucharest before all 52 passengers and six crew members were safely evacuated from the aircraft. Romanian specialists then searched the aircraft, passengers, and luggage, but no explosives or suspicious objects were found.
Following the security inspection, the aircraft was cleared to continue towards Tel Aviv. However, while taxiing in preparation for departure, the aircraft developed a technical problem. KLM subsequently cancelled the flight.
Many of the threats were sent through anonymous emails. It has been reported by Channel News Asia that emails sent to airports in Rome and Sofia are claimed to have originated from the Russian far-right group Male State. The group was established by Russian blogger Vladislav Pozdnyakov but has since been banned in Russia. Pozdnyakov has denied any involvement, saying the group no longer exists.