Ryanair Flight Escorted by RAF Typhoon to Stansted Airport in U.K.

Ryanair Flight Escorted by RAF Typhoons to Stansted Airport A Royal Air Force fighter jet escorted a Ryanair plane to Stansted Airport, north of London, on Wednesday after the flight from Lithuania was diverted because of a security threat, the airline and the authorities said.

The police said that the plane, which originated in Kaunas, Lithuania, had landed safely around 8:55 a.m., and that passengers had been escorted off the flight. Ryanair later said a “suspected hoax security alert” had been flagged by the Lithuanian authorities.

Flights were briefly halted, the airport said, but were now “arriving and departing as normal.”

It was not immediately clear why the jet had required a military escort. Loud noises were reported in the Suffolk area of England, but the police said the sounds had come from a military plane.

“We can now confirm that the loud bangs heard across Suffolk this morning was a sonic boom produced by military aircraft,” the police wrote on Twitter.

Since the 1970s, Stansted Airport has been the designated facility for receiving flights after security alerts, according to a police press officer.

London has been on high alert after a string of terrorist attacks. Most recently, in September, 29 people were injured by a bomb on a subway train at the Parsons Green station during the morning rush hour.

The attack prompted the British authorities to temporarily raise the terrorism threat to the highest possible level, and the police have asked the public to report any suspicious activity.

https://www.nytimes.com/
RAF Jets Escort Ryanair Plane

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