Hoax bomb emails reached television and other newsrooms across Europe on Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, prompting evacuations in Ireland and a security assessment at Sky in Britain, according to RTÉ, BBC News, Reuters (Padraic Halpin, via Investing.com), Al Jazeera, The Straits Times and Meduza. This desk saved RTÉ, BBC, Al Jazeera, Straits Times and Meduza copies under src/; the Reuters wire body sits as an Investing.com reprint because reuters.com returned a blocked URL shape to this desk.
RTÉ reported that staff evacuated the Donnybrook campus after the threat email, that gardaí including the Armed Response Unit attended, and that sniffer dogs searched the buildings before the site got declared safe around lunchtime. Director General Kevin Bakhurst told RTÉ an email arrived “about 8.33am,” that he received it at 8.40, and that managers put “the safety of the staff first.” RTÉ said it switched to pre-recorded programmes while Radio 1’s Today with David McCullagh stayed on air from a mobile roadcaster.
Subject line and timing: RTÉ Prime Time wrote that at 8.33 a.m. an email went to publicly listed media addresses in Ireland and the UK with the subject “MESSAGE TO THE WEST.” BBC News quoted RTÉ presenter Sarah McInerney saying the newsroom email at 08:33 carried the subject “Message to the West” and “threatened that a bomb was going to go off in the next 45 minutes.” Al Jazeera separately reported that David McCullagh told listeners the threat warned of a blast within 45 minutes.
Watch: ABC News report on European bomb threats that widened to media, via @ABC on X
If the embed does not load, it shows as a plain link to the original post. The clip does not replace the RTÉ, BBC, Reuters and Al Jazeera reporting above, and this desk did not verify every second of the video.
View the @ABC post on X
Who else got hit: BBC News said the Irish Independent and Newstalk also left offices briefly. RTÉ quoted Virgin Media Television saying it received a widely circulated security-threat email, followed protocols, stayed on air and did not evacuate. Reuters, Al Jazeera and The Straits Times reported that Sky said it received a security threat and assessed it with authorities. Reuters and Al Jazeera also named Bulgaria’s Nova TV; Reuters said Nova’s Sofia newsroom got evacuated, checked and cleared without interrupting broadcasting, and that RTÉ staff returned after a more-than-three-hour sweep.
Email wording and the Andropov signature appear mainly through Reuters and reprints. Reuters quoted one Nova/RTE email: “We want the whole world to know about us, which is why one of our operatives has planted an explosive device in your building,” plus “It will detonate in 45 minutes. The clock is ticking.” Reuters said the emails carried the name Mikhail Andropov and claimed leadership of a group behind this week’s plane hoaxes, adding: “But this is only the beginning. What happened this week is just a small part of what awaits Europe in the near future.” Meduza repeated those Reuters lines and noted the surname’s echo of Soviet leader Yuri Andropov. Reuters itself wrote that it could not establish the sender’s identity or whether the media emails shared a source with the flight threats.
Flight context and official reaction: RTÉ wrote that the media threats “purportedly came from those behind” Thursday’s hoax wave that “affected at least 27 flights across Europe,” including Aer Lingus and Ryanair services. Al Jazeera and The Straits Times described Friday flight escorts and diversions (Hungarian jets; a Wizz Air Prague–Rome diversion to Venice) and said no explosives turned up. RTÉ quoted Taoiseach Micheál Martin calling the media threats “worrying,” saying the government “will go after” those responsible, and noting that agencies had not yet determined whether individuals or a coordinated group sent them. Reuters quoted Martin on RTÉ radio saying such acts seek “to cause disruption, designed to cause fear and anxiety,” and “We have to remain calm.” Al Jazeera quoted an Irish government statement that “these threats come on the heels of the ongoing disruption to aviation around Europe caused by similar threats, and it seems likely that this is a coordinated campaign of disruption,” language this desk attributes to that statement rather than elevating as proven fact.
Attribution conflicts this desk keeps explicit: Thursday flight tallies differ (RTÉ “at least 27”; BBC News via Martin “21 flights”; Al Jazeera “more than two dozen”). Subject-line casing differs between RTÉ Prime Time (“MESSAGE TO THE WEST”) and the BBC McInerney quote (“Message to the West”). Reuters alone supplies the longer Andropov email excerpts in the copies this desk read; RTÉ/BBC confirm the 8:33 timing and 45-minute warning without reproducing the full Andropov sign-off. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares’s “hybrid aggression and a form of psychological warfare” framing appears in Al Jazeera and The Straits Times; this desk does not treat that as proof of state authorship.