Flight Lands in Istanbul After Threat

Updated Feb. 8, 2014 7:32 a.m. ET

The alleged hijacker being taken into custody in Istanbul on Friday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

A plane flying from Ukraine with 110 passengers landed safely at an airport in Istanbul after a passenger claiming to have a bomb demanded the aircraft be redirected to Sochi, where Russia is staging the Winter Olympics.
The timing of the incident, which occurred just as the Olympics’ opening ceremony was getting under way, is bound to raise already-high tensions about security at the Games.
Sochi security fears spiked in late December after twin suicide bombings in Volgograd, Russia, about 400 miles away, killed 35 people.
Friday’s incident began at 5:20 p.m. local time when the plane’s pilots sent a signal that the Pegasus Airlines PGSUS.IS -4.02% Pegasus Hava Tasimaciligi A.S. Turkey: Istanbul TRY31.00 -1.30 -4.02% Feb. 7, 2014 5:43 pm Volume : 8.82M P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap TRY3.17 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee TRY938,823 02/08/14 Flight From Ukraine Lands in I… 02/08/14 Sochi Olympics Organizers Down… More quote details and news » PGSUS.IS in Your Value Your Change Short position jet was being hijacked, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported, citing officials.
The plane was flying from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, to Istanbul. The alert came before the aircraft entered Turkey’s airspace, Habib Soluk, an undersecretary at the Transportation Ministry, told the Turkish news channel NTV.
A passenger on the plane had declared he had a bomb and demanded the plane be directed to Sochi, Mr. Soluk said.
The passenger was persuaded that the plane was heading toward Sochi, said Istanbul Gov. Huseyin Avni Mutlu. In fact, the Turkish airliner was flying over the Black Sea and was headed for Sabiha Gokcen Airport on Istanbul’s Asian side, which was the flight’s original final destination.

A plane from Kharkiv, Ukraine, landed safely at an Istanbul airport after one traveler issued a bomb threat and tried to redirect the plane to Sochi, where Russia is staging the Winter Olympics. Emre Peker reports on the News Hub.

Turkey scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to accompany the aircraft, Anadolu reported. The plane landed at the Istanbul airport at 6:05 p.m., Pegasus said in a statement.
Officials negotiated with the alleged hijacker and passengers were evacuated, with the cabin crew remaining on board, Mr. Mutlu said. Security officers then boarded the plane and subdued the alleged hijacker without the use of firearms, Mr. Mutlu said. Turkish television aired an image of the alleged hijacker showing a man wearing a Montreal Canadiens jersey.
While the person wasn’t found to have consumed alcohol, he may have used other substances to “stay alert,” Mr. Mutlu said.
A statement by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said that no weapons or explosives were found during a search of the aircraft by Turkish security personnel.
“He wanted to deliver a message at Sochi,” Mr. Mutlu said, without providing details. “We were receiving intelligence about efforts to sabotage the Sochi Olympics, which serve peace; and we’re upset that such an incident has taken place in our city.”
The Foreign Ministry in Kiev confirmed that a Ukrainian citizen had tried unsuccessfully to force the crew to fly to Sochi. In a statement published on the ministry’s website, Ukrainian officials said no explosives or weapons were found on the hijacker, corroborating initial remarks by Istanbul’s governor.
“We think this is an individual incident… the investigation is ongoing, our colleagues say this is not something serious,” Turkey’s Transportation Minister Lutfi Elvan said Saturday, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
Anadolu published eyewitness accounts of passengers from the plane on Saturday. One passenger, Mesut Koc, said that a man walked toward the front of the plane and talked with the cabin crew chief for about 30 minutes. At one point, he said, “I have a bomb on me. I will detonate it.”
“The cabin crew dealt with the crisis very well,” Mr. Koc said. “They made him sit down and offered him something.”
The plane landed just moments before the Olympics’ opening ceremony was set to begin.
News of the incident surfaced an hour or so later, as thousands of athletes from dozens of nations were parading into a stadium packed with mostly Russian spectators.
The show proceeded as planned, with Russian President Vladimir Putin looking on and the crowd apparently oblivious to the news reports. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is attending the Games alongside Mr. Putin.
“I’m glad I didn’t hear about it,” 28-year-old Tatyana Osipova said when told of the hijacking incident after the opening ceremony. “This is a celebration. While we’re here, everything is going to be OK.”

The hijacked Pegasus Airlines plane from the Ukraine is seen on the tarmac of Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport Friday. REUTERS

Tourists from Europe and the U.S. also said they felt comforted by the extensive but understated security presence in Sochi.
While fans had to go through a series of security checks at the entrance to the Olympic Park and at key points such as Sochi’s central train station, there was little obvious show of police force in the immediate vicinity of the stadium.
“All around the world, the security is for sure the same” at high-profile events, 55-year-old Martin Sutterluetti, a visitor from Austria, said. “But here, you don’t feel it.”
Security concerns were heightened in late December, when the twin bombings in Volgograd followed an earlier suicide bombing in October that had killed seven people. In January, an Islamic militant group in the nearby North Caucasus mountains claimed responsibility for the December bombings. In a video posted online, the group threatened to strike the Olympics. The persistent fears have underlined a drumbeat of cautions from U.S. officials for those attending the games.
Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning to airlines flying to Russia to be on the lookout for explosives hidden in toothpaste tubes.
Last month, the U.S. Olympic Committee sent American athletes a memo that the State Department “has advised that wearing conspicuous Team USA clothing in nonaccredited areas may put your personal safety at greater risk.”
—Katya Gorchinskaya in Kiev and Anton Troianovski in Sochi contributed to this article.
Write to Emre Peker at emre.peker@wsj.com and Ayla Albayrak at ayla.albayrak@wsj.com

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