What does the alert mean for passengers from the Canaries?
Binter flight IBB5702 from Gran Canaria to Murcia landed in Alicante on 3 November instead of its destination. It was due at Región de Murcia airport in Corvera at 12:20, but operations there had been restricted for almost two hours.
The Binter aircraft was not under threat. It simply ran into the closure, which, according to Aena (Spain’s airport operator), affected only this one flight, and no other aircraft had to change route.
For holidaymakers in the south of Gran Canaria, the case is so far an isolated report. The research found no statement from Binter or Aena about changed flight schedules.
Anyone booked on the Murcia route should check their booking and the airline’s app. It is not known whether Binter took passengers on from Alicante to Murcia.
What happened at Murcia airport?
A Ryanair flight from Manchester landed in Murcia at 10:30 on 3 November with a bomb alert on board. Emergency services, the Policía Nacional (national police) and the TEDAX (specialists in defusing explosive devices) then arrived.
Passengers got off and went through security checks. The Guardia Civil (Spanish gendarmerie) TEDAX, brought in specially from Alicante, searched the aircraft and found no explosive device.
The airport reopened at 13:00, after more than two hours of closure. Aena set the standard protocol in motion, and the Guardia Civil then took over the case.
According to sources questioned, the alert did not appear to originate in Spain, because Ryanair received the warning directly. This is expressly a provisional assessment, not a result of the investigation.
Which other flights received threats?
On the same Tuesday, a LOT Boeing 737 MAX on its way from London Heathrow to Warsaw was hit. It diverted to Warsaw/Modlin.
An SAS flight from Copenhagen to Warsaw also received a threat. An Israeli airline also made an emergency landing in Sofia.
The Bulgarian government confirmed the Sofia case through Lyubomir Nikolov, chief secretary of the Interior Ministry. He named neither the destination nor the airline of the flight.
No explosives were found on any of the aircraft, and nobody was hurt. According to the report, so many cases in one day across several countries point to a pattern, but no authority has linked them or named a culprit.
How often are the Canaries affected?
On 26 October, Vueling flight VY3008 from Barcelona landed in Gran Canaria after a bomb threat. It was scheduled to depart at 17:25 and arrive at 19:50.
The aircraft went to a secluded stand, and passengers got off under supervision. According to RTVC (the Canary Islands broadcaster), the threat proved false, and Aena said the airport was working entirely normally.
That Vueling flight was not diverted and landed at its planned destination. It therefore sits alongside the Binter flight, the only Canaries-linked flight on 3 November that actually had to divert.
In May 2025, a Ryanair flight from Tenerife South to Prestwick was diverted to Faro. A drunk British passenger is said to have threatened everyone on board with a bomb, according to a report at the time.
What faces those behind false bomb alerts?
Article 561 of Spain’s Código Penal (criminal code) makes a false alarm an offence. Anyone who feigns a danger to the public and so mobilises police or emergency services risks three months to one year in prison, or a fine of three to 18 monthly rates.
If a culprit is found, the report says they usually face criminal consequences and a demand to pay the cost of the response. A precedent shows this does not always work.
Prosecutors asked the Audiencia Nacional (National Court) for a €22,500 fine against a young Briton who wrote privately on Snapchat about a bomb. A further 95,000 euros or so covered the use of a fighter jet, but the court acquitted him because the message was private.
Several points remain open on the Murcia flight: who is behind the threats, whether proceedings are under way, and whether passengers can claim compensation. The research names no dates for further steps.