Tarek Chouiref<\/p>\n
19 October 2026\u2022Update: 19 October 2026<\/p>\n
A bomb threat forced an Austrian Airlines flight from Israel to Vienna to make an emergency landing in Bulgaria late Sunday under fighter jet escort, Israeli media reported.<\/p>\n
The Airbus A320, operating as flight OS82 from Tel Aviv, landed safely in the capital Sofia with 51 passengers and six crew members on board, the airline confirmed.<\/p>\n
The Israeli news website Ynet reported that Austrian Airlines received a warning from an Austrian citizen claiming a bomb was aboard the aircraft after it had departed Israel.<\/p>\n
The person who reported the threat was not on the plane, according to the outlet.<\/p>\n
Passengers told Ynet they had been informed of an anonymous bomb threat that forced the flight to change course.<\/p>\n
Among those on board was a delegation of young people expected to address the United Nations, the Israeli outlet reported.<\/p>\n
Bulgaria\u2019s Transport Ministry said the crew reported receiving the bomb warning while flying near the Romanian border and decided to divert to Sofia.<\/p>\n
The Bulgarian Defense Ministry said MiG-29 fighter jets were scrambled to escort the aircraft to the airport in an operation coordinated with NATO\u2019s Combined Air Operations Centre in Spain.<\/p>\n
Passengers were evacuated after landing, while Bulgarian authorities launched security checks of the aircraft.<\/p>\n
Austrian Airlines, part of the Lufthansa Group, said passengers would be rebooked on alternative flights following the inspections.<\/p>\n
Ynet reported that early indications suggested the threat could be a false alarm, although authorities had yet to announce the results of their investigation.<\/p>\n
The incident followed a similar bomb scare involving a Delta Air Lines flight from New York that landed at Israel\u2019s Ben Gurion Airport last Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Passengers were evacuated and the aircraft was moved to an isolated area for inspection following an anonymous warning. Security checks later confirmed the alert was false.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tarek Chouiref 19 October 2026\u2022Update: 19 October 2026 A bomb threat forced an Austrian Airlines flight from Israel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43,180804],"class_list":["post-650708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}