A Wizz Air flight travelling from London Luton Airport to Sofia was forced to make an emergency landing in Budapest on Monday, November 2, after receiving a bomb threat mid-flight, with a Hungarian fighter jet to escort the aircraft.
Wizz Air flight 4302 departed Luton at 08:33 GMT and was due to arrive in the Bulgarian capital at 13:25 local time. According to flight-tracking data, the Airbus A321 neo was flying over Bosnia and Herzegovina when it changed course and headed north towards Hungary, landing at Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport at 12:09 local time.
Hungarian Defence Minister Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi confirmed that a Gripen fighter jet from the Hungarian Defence Forces took to the skies “within minutes” to provide an escort for the passenger aircraft, before returning to its base at Kecskemet.
Control over the situation was handed over to the police on the ground.
According to the statement issued by Wizz Air, “the aircraft landed safely at Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport in compliance with the relevant security protocols and procedures, before taxiing to a stand, where the necessary security check was performed on the aircraft and the passengers.”
Wizz Air clarified later that the “security check was completed and nothing was found.” It was also mentioned that the aircraft would take off very soon in order to proceed to Sofia. Wizz Air assured the people that it is “fully cooperating with the authorities” and “safety of our passengers and crew remains our highest priority.”
It is still not clear who made the threat or whether it was made onboard or on the ground. This incident has come at a time when there have been a number of threats in the world of aviation in the past few months, one of them being the hijack threat to a Flydubai flight in September.
