False threats a dilemma for airlines

LONDON – Over the past week and a half, false bomb threats have forced at least half a dozen flights to make emergency landings in Europe, frightening passengers, tangling schedules and costing airlines big money.

Threats present the carriers with a risky, expensive dilemma: Must every threatened plane land and be searched, or will taking all disruptive crank calls seriously just encourage more?

Airlines seem to be erring on the side of caution.

The Sept. 26 diversion of an Athens-to-New York Olympic Airlines flight to London under military jets’ escort was the first of a flurry of threat-related emergency landings around Europe.

In the nine days since, they’ve included two other Olympic Airlines flights, a Frankfurt, Germany-to-New York Singapore Airlines plane, a Lufthansa flight to Tel Aviv, and a Berlin-to-London British Airways jet. The Lufthansa and BA planes landed with military escorts.

Also, a Frankfurt-to-Chicago United Airlines flight that landed in London because of mechanical problems was later unable to take off because of a security threat.

In none of the cases was a bomb found on board.

Chris Yates, aviation security editor for Jane’s Transport, said the calls were probably coming from pranksters, possibly several people copying one another, but could also be part of a more organized effort to disrupt airline operations.