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In past week or two, there has been 3 flights from Belgrade (Serbia), to Moscow, who got anonymously tipped via Email, that there is a bomb planted on that aircraft. Every plane immediately made a turn, and landed on the closest airport, so the passengers and stuff can be evacuated, and the plane can be examined. Each alarm was false.

So my question is, what can an Air company actually do in those situations? I mean, someone can send those threats on daily basis and cancel many flights by doing so?

Note: I'm really not sure what Tags to put.

aca
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  • If they find the person sending the email, they can sue them for damages. Right now there might be political considerations as well. And more than one person sending emails. – gnasher729 Mar 18 '22 at 09:05
  • ... they can stop taking such threats seriously? – JonathanReez Mar 18 '22 at 16:50
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    I think much of the reason this is being asked is that, if airlines keep having to stop their planes and such in response to these kinds of threats, it makes it absolutely trivial for a small group of troublemakers to completely disable a given airline indefinitely. *THUS, not only what can the airline do in retaliation, but ALSO* what can they do to be able to keep doing business despite a small group spamming these "tips" continually? Do they really have to surrender their right to ever fly again to something this trivial for a few foreign agents or hackers or something to set up? –  Mar 18 '22 at 20:11
  • That doesn't appear to be a legal question. They CAN do all sorts of things: ignore it, report it to the authority, hire a private detective, try to track IP addresses, make a public plea for help, beef up their bomb scanning processes, etc. Nothing legal will kick in here unless you actually found who has done it – Hilmar Mar 20 '22 at 13:21
  • @JonathanReez there is like a million reasons why they can't just ignore those threats – aca Mar 21 '22 at 08:13
  • @aca show us one example in the last 20 years where a bomb threat on a plane turned out to be real in Europe – JonathanReez Mar 21 '22 at 15:09
  • @JonathanReez There is a strict procedure of what you must do in such cases, nobody wants to take a risk of not doing anything, in case the worst happens. Something like this. – aca Mar 21 '22 at 15:35
  • @aca just because some “procedure” exists doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to act on it. Like I said, those bomb threats are never real because real terrorists just blow things up instead of sending warnings. With a few rare exceptions like the IRA, all bomb threats are fake. – JonathanReez Mar 21 '22 at 15:40
  • @JonathanReez Just because it's pretty rare, doesn't mean it wont happen. – aca Mar 21 '22 at 15:51
  • @aca just because it might happen doesn’t mean you have to take bomb threats seriously – JonathanReez Mar 21 '22 at 16:02
  • @JonathanReez We will have to agree to disagree – aca Mar 22 '22 at 08:11

1 Answers1

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The "Air Company"-airline can't really do a whole lot other than sue for damages. If they do internal investigation, they can provide all the evidence to the appropriate authority (if the airline is based in Serbia, this is the Military Intelligence Authority "AOV"). Otherwise the airline would work with the appropriate authority in their country of registration and that of the accused (if known).

After they are found they can (again, depending on the country of the airline and that of the accused) file a civil case for compensation.

Ron Beyer
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