Austrian Airlines flight from Tel Aviv makes emergency landing after bomb threat

An Austrian Airlines flight from Tel Aviv to Vienna made an emergency landing in Sofia on Sunday after a bomb threat, Bulgarian authorities said.

The Airbus A320 landed safely with 51 passengers and six crew members aboard after reportedly receiving a bomb threat near the Bulgarian-Romanian border.

"During the flight, ​on the border with Romania, the crew reported a ​bomb threat signal and decided to land in Sofia extraordinarily," the Bulgarian transport ​ministry said ​in a ⁠statement.

Fighter jet escorts plane

The Airbus A320 plane was flying from Tel Aviv for Vienna but was diverted to Sofia in Bulgaria at 9:25 p.m., air tracker Flightradar24 data showed.

Data from another flight-tracking platform, ADS-B Exchange, showed that the flight transmitted a squawk code 7700, a signal for a general emergency, around the time it was diverted.

A Bulgarian MiG-29 fighter jet was scrambled to escort the aircraft.

Following the evacuation of passengers after landing, a security search of the plane was launched, Austrian Airlines said in a statement quoted by Austrian news agency APA.

"Once the search of the aircraft is complete, the passengers will be rebooked onto alternative flights as quickly as possible," the airline said.

Last month, the co-pilot of Flydubai flight was suspected of attacking his pilot in the cockpit, and attempting to hijack the plane and crash it intentionally in Israel.

Meanwhile, last week, an accidental hijacking alert from a commercial flight from the Corfu in Greece to the German city of Nuremberg caused both Croatia and Germany both to scrambled fighter jets.

Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko

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