Bulgarian fighter jets escorted an Austrian Airlines plane carrying 57 people to Sofia after its crew reported a security threat<\/p>\n
An Austrian Airlines flight carrying 57 people from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Vienna made an emergency landing in Bulgaria following a bomb threat.
\nAccording to a statement from Bulgaria\u2019s Transport Ministry, the crew of Austrian Airlines flight OS82, an Airbus A320, reported receiving \u201ca bomb threat\u201d while flying near the Romanian border on Sunday.
\nBulgarian MiG-29 fighter jets were scrambled to escort the aircraft to Vasil Levski Sofia Airport. All 51 passengers and six crew members disembarked safely.
\nAustrian Airlines spokeswoman Anita Kiefer said the passengers would be rebooked on alternative flights following a police search of the aircraft.
\nThe incident follows two bomb threats involving Delta Air Lines flights between New York and Tel Aviv on October 13. One aircraft was evacuated and searched after landing at Ben Gurion Airport, while another was held at New York\u2019s JFK Airport before departure. Both were cleared after security inspections found no explosives.
\nThe latest scare also comes after an attempted terrorist attack aboard a Flydubai flight carrying mostly Israeli passengers from Dubai to Tel Aviv on September 30. A co-pilot attacked the captain with an emergency axe and attempted to seize control of the aircraft. Passengers and crew members overpowered the assailant, allowing the plane to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.\u00a0The pilot, Indian national Smit Machchhar, sustained serious injuries.
\nAccording to Emirati prosecutors, the suspect, an Omani national, had planned to crash the aircraft into the passenger terminal at Ben Gurion Airport to cause mass casualties.
\nFollowing the attempted hijacking, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered tighter security checks on foreign airline crews and a comprehensive review of aviation security procedures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bulgarian fighter jets escorted an Austrian Airlines plane carrying 57 people to Sofia after its crew reported a security threat An Austrian Airlines flight carrying 57 people from Tel Aviv,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t