Once hijacked THY plane arrives at Istanbul

The Turkish Airlines (THY) plane, which was hijacked on Tuesday while flying from Tirana to Istanbul, arrived at Istanbul's Ataturk airport on Wednesday, the semi- official Anatolia news agency reported.

The Boeing 737-400 jet landed at the airport at 8:40 a.m. local time (0540 GMT) with 111 people aboard, including 105 passengers and six crew members, the report said.

The Istanbul-bound THY jet with 113 people aboard, departed from Tirana at 16:20 (1420 GMT) and was hijacked after takeoff.

Turkey's Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler said on Tuesday that two hijackers showed packages in their hands to the THY jet pilots and told the pilots that these packages were actually bombs.

The plane later was forced to land at Italy's Brindisi airport after two Italian F-16s took off and intercepted the hijacked plane.

Guler said that one of the hijackers Hakan Ekinci is a military deserter. He ran away to Albania on May 6, 2006.

Ekinci converted to Christianity in 1998 and refused to serve in Turkish Armed Forces. He sent a letter to Pope Benedict XVI from Tirana where he was living in a refugee camp and requested Pope's help so that he had not returned to Turkey.

Hakan Ekinci has decided to stay in Brindisi, Italy.

Hakan Ekinci said after landing that he did this to protest a planned visit of the pope Benedict XVI to Turkey next month.

Source: Xinhua