TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran’s paramilitary revolutionary guard said on Friday that authorities had disrupted an attempted hijacking of a passenger plane during a flight last night, although it had provided little details about what had happened. The media close to the forces later said that the hijacker used a fake gun and explosive belt to increase the effort.
The alleged hijacking was aimed at a local Air Fokker 100 commercial aircraft en route from the southwestern city of Ahvaz to the northwestern city of Mashhad, the guard said on its website.
The Guard’s announcement did not identify the suspect and only said that the hijacker wanted to direct the flight to the ‘southern shore of the Persian Gulf’. This description would include the countries of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three countries that have long been suspicious of Iran’s intentions in the wider region.
It is said that the Iran Air flight made an emergency landing in the city of Isfahan in the central Iranian country, and that no one was injured in the incident. It was not immediately clear if the suspected hijacker was armed during the attempt.
According to the aircraft tracking website FlightRadar24.com, a Fokker 100 would take off from Ahvaz to Mashhad on Thursday at 19:15. Iran Air has three of the planes in its fleet, each about thirty years old, as Iran remains excluded from international aircraft sales due to sanctions.
Later Friday, news papers near the guard identified the suspect as Mohammad Hossein Haghighatmanash and said he tried to hijack the plane with 62 passengers and six crew members on board, about 20 minutes after takeoff.
According to the reports, he handed over a written letter to one of the flight attendants.
“I am carrying a bomb and the remote control is in the hands of another passenger,” the letter said, adding that the flight should return to Ahvaz.
The man then moved to the front of the cabin and repeated his threats orally. He showed what looked like an explosive belt made with adhesive tape, wires and wooden sticks, and threatened to put it down, the reports read. Air forces detained him after a brief conversation.
According to reports, a photo of a man in handcuffs was tied around his torso, saying he was traveling with his wife and two sons who were also detained. According to reports, the man apparently had no criminal record.
The semi-official ILNA news agency quotes an unnamed informed official that the suspect has ‘no bomb’ but that he wrapped some wooden sticks around his body.
Iranian domestic flights are reportedly carrying armed air marshals of the Guard on board to disrupt any attempted attack or hijacking. The Guard took over aviation security in the 1980s after a series of incidents in which Iranian opposition groups seized aircraft in the unrest that followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The last two such attempts took place in 2000. In September 2000, a man armed with a fake pistol and a petrol bomb tried to seize an Iran Air Fokker 100 and tried to get the flight to France. He caught fire and later detained, according to a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
In November 2000, gunmen from four families confiscated a Yakovlev YAK-40 aircraft flown by Iranian Ariatour Airlines, and demanded to be flown to the United States. The guards’ airmen thwarted the attempt, although one of them was shot and a second stabbed. A flight attendant and five hijackers were also injured, according to the FAA report.
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Associated Press author Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.