By Xinhua
Ankara : A Turkish passenger aircraft was hijacked Saturday by two men en route from northern Cyprus to Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city, Anatolia news agency reported.
The hijackers wanted to fly the plane to Iran’s capital city Tehran after it took off from the Ercan Airport in Nicosia in northern Cyprus at 04.15 GMT, according to the report.
When the pilots said they needed to refuel, the hijackers tried to storm the cockpit but they were unsuccessful, Anatolia said, adding that they took one airhostess hostage and threatened to harm her.
The plane later landed at an airport in the southern Turkish city of Antalya for refuelling and the pilots left the airplane, the report said.
There are 136 passengers and six crewmembers on board the plane, operated by the private Turkish airline company Atlas Jet.
Sources were quoted as saying that one of the hijackers was speaking Arabic and one of them had a knife while the other was carrying a package that he claimed was a bomb.