WORLD> Europe
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WORLD> Europe
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Drunk passenger fails in attempted hijacking
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-16 10:49 ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- A drunk man claiming to have a bomb tried to hijack a Russian-bound Turkish Airlines plane on Wednesday but fellow passengers quickly overpowered him, officials said. Russian transport police detained him after the plane landed safely in St. Petersburg, prosecutor Alexander Bebenin told reporters at the city's Pulkovo airport. Bebenin said the man had threatened to blow up the plane if his demands of diverting the flight to Strasbourg, France, were not met. Passengers overpowered him after he had handed a note to attendants with his demands, he said. No explosives were found on the passenger or the plane, he said. The man, whose identity has not been disclosed, is a native of Uzbekistan, Turkish and Russian officials have said. Bebenin said he was a Russian citizen but the head of Turkey's civil aviation authority, Ali Ariduru, said in remarks televised in Russia that he was an Uzbek citizen. Most of the 164 passengers aboard the flight were unaware of the hijack attempt and only found out on emerging from the plane after a two-hour wait on the tarmac, Bebenin said. "We didn't see anything on board, and we knew nothing about the problems," said Aleftina, one of the passengers of the plane, who refused to give her last name, on leaving the airport. "We realized that there was something wrong with our flight when we landed and they asked us to stay at our seats," she said, adding that passengers' belongings were searched. The plane departed from Turkey's Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, a popular destination for Russian tourists. |
