Aer Lingus pilot under investigation in France after refusing military base landing

Diversion and fighter escort

An Aer Lingus Airbus A320 carrying 157 people was flying from Dublin to Rome on 5 November 2026 when, following a bomb alert, air authorities ordered it to land at air base 105 in Évreux, Normandy. The Irish pilot, with a British co-pilot beside him, first refused the instruction and asked for a civilian airport, naming Nantes or Beauvais, according to reports. French military authorities then scrambled two fighters, a Mirage 2000-5 and a Rafale, which flew alongside the airliner and escorted it to the runway at Évreux. Italian and Portuguese outlets describe the alert as a suspected explosive package on board.

Investigation and passengers

Évreux prosecutor Rémi Coutin travelled to the base and opened a formal investigation into the refusal to obey an order from the air authority. Speaking to the French news agency AFP, Coutin said the pilot would be questioned without being held in custody, and that he would decide later whether to order temporary custody. Coutin described the refusal as a specific breach of the transport code. After landing, the aircraft was isolated and inspected. Coutin said all 157 passengers disembarked, were identified and checked by gendarmes, and then boarded buses to a gymnasium on the air base.

A Portuguese report citing France 3 says the prosecutor's office opened three independent inquiries into the captain's conduct, and that the initial refusal could amount to an offence under the French air transport code. According to the office of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, the prime minister personally decided to send the fighters after observing the pilot's attitude and lack of cooperation.

Wider wave of false alarms

The Portuguese report says more than 15 flights and European airports were hit by false bomb threats in the latest hours, across France, Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, Denmark and Greece. The incidents follow alerts on Tuesday, 3 November, which had already prompted wide security measures. A Porto-Milan flight was affected, according to the Italian agency ANSA, and a Lisbon-Rome flight was among the services hit on Tuesday. One outlet notes this is the third time this week that false bomb alarms have disrupted European air traffic and forced flights to change course.

Threat email and open questions

ANSA reports that a Russian extremist cell sent an email to Italian airports threatening six flights with a bomb. The message said an explosion would occur within 60 minutes and that the sky would turn red. It was signed by fighters of the "Male State", a signature that refers to the Muzhskoye Gosudarstvo, described as an ultranationalist and misogynist Russian movement already known to international authorities. The reporting names Vladislav Pozdnyakov as the movement's founder. The sources do not establish whether the Aer Lingus alert is linked to that email, and investigators have yet to determine the reasons the captain gave for deviating from standard procedures.