Nearly 30 Jets Got Bomb Threats in One Day. Only 3 Changed Course.

On Thursday, November 5, an Aer Lingus A320 flying from Dublin to Rome set squawk 7700 over Normandy. A French air force base was 28 miles away. The jet landed there 82 minutes later, and France said the pilot "did not cooperate as expected." That same day, hoax bomb threats hit flights all over Europe, and viral posts said dozens of airliners were forced down under fighter escort. We pulled the public ADS-B data for every threatened flight we could match and checked the claims one by one. What we found: • We matched 19 threatened flights in the data on Nov. 5. 16 landed where they were going. 3 diverted. 2 set squawk 7700. • Of about 17,000 flights by some 60 European airlines that day, only two set 7700: the Aer Lingus jet and a Wizz Air jet. Nobody set the hijack code (7500) or the radio-failure code (7600). • Viral post with nine "diverted" airliners: one of them diverted. • Aer Lingus 402 (EI-DEH): 7700 at 08:42 CET at 37,000 ft, 28 miles from Évreux-Fauville Air Base. About ten more minutes toward Rome, three holding loops south of Paris, a pass two miles from the base at 6,750 ft, a climb to 20,000 ft, then touchdown at 10:04 CET. 82 minutes and about 480 miles after the emergency code. • About five flights were escorted by fighters. Fighters can identify and watch an airliner. They can't do anything about a bomb. What we don't know, and won't pretend to: who asked for the long path. The track fits a crew that didn't want to land at a military base, and it also fits air traffic control, the fighters, or a crew taking more time to search the cabin. The answer is on the radio recordings and possibly the cockpit voice recorder, and neither has been released. Aer Lingus says its pilots fully cooperated and that their engagement with the French authorities has concluded. As of Friday morning, Nov. 6, nobody has been charged. NOT PROVEN means the data cannot settle it, in either direction. ADS-B shows where aircraft flew, not why. This is our own analysis of public data, not an official finding. Earlier on this channel: ▶ 5 Million Watched the Wrong Clip. Here's the Storm the Learjet Actually Turned Into:    • 5 Million Watched the Wrong Clip. Here's t...   ▶ Everyone Reported 8,750 Feet. The Learjet's Own Data Says 325:    • Everyone Reported 8,750 Feet. The Learjet'...   Chapters: 0:00 Squawk 7700 over Normandy 1:22 The threats 3:59 Nineteen flights in the data 4:31 The post with nine airliners 6:27 Fighter jets: what they can and can't do 7:17 Flight 402, minute by minute 8:50 Over the base, and away 9:36 Did the pilot refuse? 11:06 Who sends these 12:57 The scorecard Sources: AFP, Reuters, AP reporting, Nov. 2–6, 2026 (French prime minister's office; Évreux prosecutor's office; Aer Lingus statement); The Irish Times, Nov. 6, 2026 BTA (Bulgarian transport minister Georgi Peev, Nov. 3); Bulgarian Ministry of Defence (MiG-29 scramble) Euronews; The Irish Times; Eunews (Guido Crosetto); EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas, Nov. 5 ICAO Annex 17 (unlawful interference); Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 (extraordinary circumstances) UK Criminal Law Act 1977, s. 51 (bomb hoaxes); French Penal Code art. 322-14 ICAO fact-finding investigation, Ryanair FR4978 (Minsk, May 23, 2021), report 2022 India Ministry of Civil Aviation, hoax bomb threat figures, 2024 ADS-B: adsb.lol historical data (ODbL). Maps: Natural Earth (public domain) X posts shown for commentary and criticism: Fox News (x.com/FoxNews), WarMonitor (x.com/WarMonitor3) Photos: Aer Lingus A320 EI-DEH: Bene Riobó, CC BY-SA 4.0; Anna Zvereva, CC BY-SA 2.0 Finnair A321 OH-LZR: Anna Zvereva, CC BY-SA 2.0. Ryanair 737 9H-QCX: Jonathan Payne, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped) Eurofighter, 4° Stormo (file photo): Jerry Gunner, CC BY 2.0 Bulgarian MiG-29 and Hungarian Gripen (file photos): U.S. Air Force, public domain Évreux-Fauville Air Base: Ascobole, CC BY-SA 3.0. Plovdiv Airport: apoltix, CC BY-SA 2.0 Some atmosphere shots are AI-generated illustrations, marked as such in YouTube settings. Fighter photos are file photos, not Thursday's jets.