IDF scrambles fighter jets after hijacking false alarm; flight lands safely in Bulgaria

LOT Polish Airlines flight, operated by Electra Airways, sends mistaken alert over Turkey, drawing Israeli and Bulgarian military planes; airline blames transponder malfunction

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and ToI Staff

Today, 10:08 pm

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A pair of Israeli Air Force fighter jets was scrambled on Tuesday to escort a commercial flight that had departed Warsaw and was en route to Tel Aviv, after the plane appeared to send an alert that it had been hijacked.

The military said that the fighter jets had been dispatched due to “lack of contact with the aircraft,”  but the fears were quickly resolved.

“The event has ended and contact has been restored with the airplane. There is no concern of a security incident,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

The pilot of LOT Polish Airlines flight 155, operated by Electra Airways, appeared to send a signal from the Airbus A320 warning of a security emergency.

Bulgaria’s transport ministry blamed “a technical failure of the aircraft’s transponder, which transmitted a false [code 7500] signal of unlawful interference/hijacking.”

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According to Hebrew media reports, the plane continued to fly on its path and was briefly intercepted by the Israeli fighter jets. Near Cyprus, the flight was denied clearance to land in Israel due to the alert.

The commercial plane was redirected to Bulgaria at the operator’s request, where it was “intercepted and escorted” by Bulgarian jets, the country’s transport ministry said.

It landed in the city of Burgas, where Electra Airways is based, a LOT spokesman said, “due to limitations related to the authorized working time for the crew.”

A similar incident occurred in February, when fighter jets were scrambled to escort a Wizz Air flight to Tel Aviv from London’s Luton Airport, in response to a “threatening message” on a passenger’s phone.

In that incident, the jets escorted the flight back to the airport, at which point “the aircraft landed, and it was found that there was no real incident,” according to the IDF.

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