Another Commercial Flight Escorted, Diverted After Bomb Hoax

It started with an anonymous bomb threat phoned in to Lufthansa shortly after flight LH686 left Frankfurt for Tel Aviv Tuesday. Before it was over, the apparent hoax would force the aircraft to divert and cause an international incident involving Germany, Israel and Cyprus.

It was the fourth bomb hoax aimed at a major European airline in two weeks. Even as the Lufthansa 747-400 carrying 331 passengers and a crew of 16 was still in the air, airline officials decided it was a hoax and suggested the flight continue on to Israel.

But the Israelis saw things a bit differently. The Israel Defense Force sent a pair of F-16s to intercept the Lufthansa flight. In the process, officials on Cyprus say the Israeli warplanes accidentally intercepted a Swiss flight, violating Cypriot air regulations. The officials in Nicosia said the Swiss airliner had to quickly change altitude to avoid the fighters.

"It appears they then realized their mistake and moved on to the Lufthansa plane," Cypriot Communications Minister Haris Thrassou told the BBC.

The Lufthansa flight was diverted to Larnaca, Cyprus, where it was searched for five hours before it was allowed to continue on to Tel Aviv. Nothing suspicious was found on board the aircraft.

This latest series of bomb hoaxes began September 26th, when an Olympic Airlines flight from Athens to New York was diverted to London and escorted by military aircraft after the airline received a bomb threat. Since then, two other Olympic Airlines flights, a Frankfurt, Germany-to-New York Singapore Airlines plane and a Berlin-to-London British Airways jet have all been diverted because of threats -- some with military escorts. In none of the cases were any explosives found.

"We might just be looking at somebody who thinks it's a terrific wheeze (joke) to ring up a television station or a newspaper and say, 'There's a bomb on Flight SQ26,' and then sit back and watch the TV coverage of it all," said Chris Yates, aviation security editor for Jane's Transport in an interview with the London Guarding newspaper. "Maybe that gives them some sort of ... warped kick."

FMI: www.tsa.gov, www.cyprus.gov.cy/cyphome/govhome.nsf/Main?OpenFrameSet