TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said on Friday that authorities had stopped an attempted hijacking of a passenger plane in flight the night before, although it offered little details about what happened. Media close to the forces later said the kidnapper used a fake weapon and an explosive belt to stage the attempt.
The alleged hijacking targeted a regional Iran Air Fokker 100 commercial jet that was flying from the city of Ahvaz to the northwest of the city of Mashhad, the Guard said on his website.
The Guard’s announcement did not identify the suspect and merely said that the hijacker was trying to divert the flight to the “southern coast of the Persian Gulf”. That description would include the countries of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three nations that have long been suspicious of Iran’s intentions in the region.
According to the report, the Iran Air flight made an emergency landing in the city of Isfahan, in central Iran, and no one was injured in the incident. It was not immediately clear whether the alleged hijacker was armed during the attempt.
A Fokker 100 was scheduled to take off from Ahvaz to Mashhad at 7:15 pm on Thursday, according to the aircraft tracking website FlightRadar24.com. Iran Air has three aircraft in its fleet, each about 30 years old, as Iran remains barred from selling international aircraft due to sanctions.
Later on Friday, media outlets close to the Guard identified the suspect as Mohammad Hossein Haghighatmanash, saying he attempted to hijack the plane with 62 passengers and six crew members on board about 20 minutes after takeoff.
Reports say he delivered a written note to one of the flight attendants.
“I am carrying a bomb and the remote control is in the hands of another passenger,” said the note, asking for the flight to return to Ahvaz.
The man then went to the front of the hut and verbally repeated his threats. He showed what appeared to be an explosive belt made of duct tape, wires and wooden sticks and threatened to detonate it, reports said. Air Force marshals stopped him after a brief conversation.
The reports, which featured a photo of a man handcuffed with duct tape over his upper body, said he was traveling with his wife and two children, who were also in detention. The man apparently had no criminal record, according to reports.
The semi-official news agency ILNA cited an unidentified informed official as saying that the suspect “did not have a bomb” but had “wrapped some pieces of wood” around the body.
Iranian domestic flights reportedly carry Guard Air Force agents on board to prevent any attempted attack or hijacking. The Guard took over aviation security in the 1980s, after a series of incidents involving Iranian opposition groups that seized aircraft in the disturbances that followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution in the country.
The last two attempts took place in 2000. In September 2000, a man armed with a fake pistol and a gas pump tried to seize an Iran Air Fokker 100, trying to get the flight to France. He started a fire on board and was later arrested, according to a report by the United States Federal Aviation Administration.
In November 2000, gunmen from four families seized a Yakovlev YAK-40 aircraft piloted by Iranian Ariatour Airlines, demanding to board the United States. Guard aviation marshals thwarted the attempt, although one was shot and the other stabbed. A flight attendant and five hijackers were also injured, says the FAA report.
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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.