Bomb threat on TAROM flight from Prague ends in safe landing in Bucharest

Landing under security procedures

On Friday, 6 November, a bomb threat was linked to TAROM flight ROT226, which had flown from Prague to Bucharest with 102 passengers on board. The aircraft was scheduled to land at Henri Coandă International Airport at 12:23 local time. Before its arrival, the airport operator, Compania Națională Aeroporturi București (CNAB), began applying procedures for such situations in cooperation with state institutions. Later updates said the plane landed safely at 12:19 at Otopeni.

CNAB said air traffic was running safely, and that flights were not affected and continued according to plan.

“Air traffic is proceeding safely, without problems, according to the flight plan.”

What the intelligence service said

SRI described the threat against the Prague flight as unspecified, meaning it named no particular target, and said no measures were needed on the ground. The service explained that alerts like this are not assessed by its specialists alone, but through several bodies responsible for flight security. Typically the airline receives the threat and informs the pilots, who pass it to the control tower. Authorities then examine the message and check a range of indicators to establish whether the danger is real. If the message is judged false, no further intervention is ordered. In this case, SRI concluded the threat was not specific enough to justify sending teams onto the ground.

A wave of threats on 5 November

The alert followed a series of similar incidents on Thursday, 5 November. That day a Milan to Bucharest flight was targeted by a bomb threat before landing at Henri Coandă, and it touched down safely with 182 passengers and seven crew aboard. An SRI explosives team checked the aircraft and the alert was not confirmed. A KLM aircraft flying to Tel Aviv with a stop in Bucharest also received a threat, landed, and underwent explosives checks. A second threat against a flight bound for Bucharest was unspecified and triggered no further measures. An Air Serbia flight from Belgrade to Bucharest was also targeted, and after standard security procedures on the ground the threat proved false. Separately, an Aer Lingus Airbus A320 flying from Dublin to Rome was diverted to a French air base after a bomb threat, landing safely under escort by French military aircraft. More than 25 flights across Europe were targeted in a single day, and five of the bomb threats hit Romania.

What comes next

Authorities were to apply specific procedures once the TAROM aircraft had landed. The sources do not detail what those procedures involved.