Turkish police today arrested a man who tried to hijack an airliner flying from the south-east of the country to Istanbul and divert it to Iran, officials said.
The man burst into the cockpit of the Pegasus Air flight, carrying 178 passengers, and threatened to blow the plane up, saying he had a bomb on board, Hayati Soylu, the deputy governor of Turkey's capital city, Ankara, said.
The plane, which was flying from the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir to Istanbul, instead landed in Ankara, where anti-terrorist police detained the man.
There was no information as to why the hijacker, named in local reports as Mehmet Gokcingol, aged about 40, wanted to divert the plane.
Firat Keles, a passenger on board, told CNN-Turk television that the man could be seen reading the Qur'an during the flight. There was no panic on board, he added.
Pegasus Air is an Istanbul-based carrier that flies to a series of destinations around Europe, including a series of cities in Germany and London's Stansted airport.