Two men said to speak Arabic took control of an airliner and demanded it land in Tehran. It landed in Turkey instead:
A number of passengers escaped from the plane after it landed at Antalya.
An official from the airline, Atlas Jet, said there were 136 passengers and six crew on the plane when it left Ercan Airport in Northern Cyprus.
The plane was two hours into its journey from Northern Cyprus to Istanbul, when two men tried to forced their way into the cockpit, the BBC’s Turkey correspondent Sarah Rainsford reports.
When they did not succeed, the men asked to be flown to Iran, but the plane landed in Antalya.
A number of passengers then succeeded in opening the door and jumping on the tarmac, according to local reports.
Only a few passengers, crew members and the hijackers were left on board, Atlas Jet chief executive Tuncay Doganer said.
UPDATE:
After more than five hours of negotiations, the hijackers released the remaining four passengers and two crew members and surrendered.
Allegations that the two men were linked to Al Qaeda or other organizations were under investigation, Osman Gunes, Turkey’s interior minister, said at a news conference afterward.
“We’re going to investigate further as to what kind of objectives they had,” he said.
