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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
National
Sami Quadri

Fighter jets scrambled to escort UK flight after ‘threatening messages’ sent onboard

Israeli fighter jets were deployed to intercept a Wizz Air flight travelling from the UK to Tel Aviv after passengers received "threatening messages".

The aircraft was mid-flight from Luton to Ben-Gurion airport when the "security incident" occurred.

At least one traveller received an unusual message that sparked concerns about a potential threat to the plane.

The flight crew alerted the control tower at Ben-Gurion Airport, which dispatched fighter jets to provide an escort.

The Wizz Air aircraft touched down safely in Israel before security teams examined all passengers.

N12 News reports that authorities believe a passenger changed a WiFi account name to "terrorist" and sent threatening messages to other passengers.

The incident remains under investigation.

The Airports Authority said: "Due to suspicion of suspicious behavior on the plane, security forces acted according to the procedures for such a case. The incident ended. The plane landed and it was found that there was no actual incident."

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