An airplane landed safely at a Turkish airport on Friday after an attempted hijacker demanded the pilots fly to Sochi instead of its intended Istanbul destination. He was apprehended as soon as the plane landed in Turkey.
The hijacker, who has not been identified, told people on the Pegasus Airlines plane he
had a bomb and demanded that the plane fly to Sochi, The New York Times said. The man, who was drunk, was misled by the crew to think the plane was landing in Sochi.
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"While the plane was in the air, one of the passengers said that there was a bomb on board and asked the plane to not land in Sabiha Gokcen (in Turkey)
but rather to land in Sochi," Transportation Ministry official Habip Soluk told CNNTurk.
Bloomberg said two F-16 Turkey air force jets escorted the plane, which had 110 passengers on board, as soon as it entered Turkish airspace. No bomb was found on the plane, a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
The Times said the man was a Ukrainian citizen, and he was transferred to the Istanbul Security Headquarters.
Cihan News Agency reported that the man tried to enter the cockpit during the flight, but pilots were able to keep him out.
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