Airplanes fly above the Danube river during an air show that celebrates Hungarian national holiday in Budapest, Hungary on Aug. 20, 2021. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua)
Hungarian fighter jets were alerted to intercept a civilian plane late Saturday night following information that the plane was carrying a bomb, the defence ministry said in a statement Sunday morning.
"The Hungarian Army's Gripens were alerted on March 19 at night because of a civilian Airbus A321 aircraft," the ministry said, adding that the plane was en route from Georgia to Poland.
"The plane was flying in Romanian airspace when it signaled a bomb threat to civilian air traffic control," the statement added.
The passenger Airbus was escorted by the aircrafts of the Romanian Air Force to the Romanian-Hungarian border, where the task was taken over by the fighter jets of the Hungarian Armed Forces, according to the ministry.
The Hungarian ministry also informed that the A321 aircraft was escorted out of Hungarian airspace, where the Slovak Air Force took over.
According to local media, the plane landed after 11 p.m. at Warsaw airport. After checking the plane and passengers' luggage, police announced that nothing dangerous was found onboard.
This type of bomb threat was the second one in a week. On Monday, the Gripen fighter jets were scrambled to intercept a civilian plane after air traffic control was told that the plane was carrying a bomb.
The Serbian Airbus A319 flying from Belgrade to Moscow was turned back at the Hungary-Slovakia border after Belgrade's control tower told Hungarian air traffic control that the plane had a bomb on board.
The Gripens identified the Serbian aircraft and escorted it outside Hungary's airspace towards Serbia. The Gripens remained in flight near the border until the Airbus A319 safely landed.