LOT Flight LO286 From Heathrow Diverts to Warsaw-Modlin After a Bomb Threat, Closing the Airport

LOT Polish Airlines flight LO286 from London Heathrow to Warsaw diverted to Warsaw-Modlin Airport on the morning of Tuesday, November 3, 2026, after a bomb threat was raised on board. Modlin closed while bomb disposal teams checked the Boeing 737 MAX and the 181 people on it were taken to the terminal.

A second threat the same morning involved an SAS flight from Copenhagen, which landed at Warsaw Chopin Airport and was checked there. At the time of writing, no authority had said whether anything was found on either aircraft.

What happened on the Heathrow to Warsaw flight

According to Warsaw-Modlin Airport, the threat was announced at 9:54 a.m. local time on a flight from Heathrow that was due at Warsaw Chopin. The airport said the 737 MAX landed at Modlin seven minutes later, at 10:01 a.m., with 181 people and about 3.7 metric tons (8,200 pounds) of fuel on board.

A LOT spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that it was a LOT flight. In a statement carried by the Evening Standard, the airline said airport authorities had notified it of a potential security threat, and that the aircraft landed at Modlin and taxied to a designated parking stand.

The Standard identified the service as LO286 and cited FlightAware data showing a Boeing 737 MAX 8 leaving Heathrow at 6:54 a.m. on Tuesday. LOT has not published the aircraft’s registration.

Once on the ground, the jet was moved to a designated spot to await decisions by the security services, including bomb disposal teams, the airport said. Airport spokesperson Adam Szabłowski told TVN Warszawa that the airport had been closed and was waiting for the bomb technicians, according to Dziennik.pl.

By about 11 a.m., the passengers had been taken off the aircraft and were waiting in Modlin’s arrivals hall, airport authorities said, as reported by RMF24. The Polish broadcaster also reported that bomb technicians were sent to check both the aircraft and the passengers’ luggage.

Modlin’s president, Jacek Kowalski, said the aircraft was diverted in line with procedures and described it as an emergency landing after a report of a possible explosive device, naTemat reported. None of the statements published so far explain why Modlin was chosen over Chopin, the flight’s destination.

How long Modlin was closed

The airport first said it would stay closed “until further notice” while the services verified the threat and made sure everyone at the airport was safe. Flight operations resumed at about noon, Money.pl reported, while three aprons stayed closed.

The airport’s statement at noon, as quoted by Money.pl, said the aircraft was still being checked by the relevant services. No official result of that search had been published at the time of writing.

Modlin sits about 22 miles (36 km) from central Warsaw and mostly serves low-cost airlines, Reuters noted.

The SAS flight to Warsaw Chopin

The SAS flight from Copenhagen landed at Warsaw Chopin Airport at about 9:30 a.m. and was checked by the services, RMF24 reported. No flight number for the SAS service has been published.

Chopin stayed open. Piotr Rudzki, acting spokesperson for the airport and its operator Polskie Porty Lotnicze, said one runway was closed but the other kept handling takeoffs and landings as scheduled, according to Interia.

Whether the two threats are connected is not known, Rzeczpospolita reported.

A run of threats against European flights

The Warsaw diversions came a day after Wizz Air flight W64302, also from London, turned back to Budapest after a bomb threat on its way to Sofia. On October 18, Austrian Airlines OS82 from Tel Aviv to Vienna made an unscheduled stop in Sofia for the same reason.

The response at Modlin followed a familiar sequence for a threat against an aircraft. The jet was parked at a designated spot, the passengers were taken off, and the aircraft and luggage were checked before the services could say whether the threat was real.

The timeline shows what a threat costs even before anyone knows if it is real. Modlin’s flights were halted for about two hours, and they resumed while the LOT jet was still being checked, with the aprons around it kept closed.