Israeli's Force Down Lufthansa Jet

[Guest Lottie]

Israeli jet fighters have forced an incoming Lufthansa airliner to land in Cyprus after a bomb alert that German officials had not considered serious.

"We wanted to fly to Tel Aviv but the Israeli authorities forced us to land in Larnaca," said a Lufthansa official.

Flight LH686 from Frankfurt landed and is being searched by security staff.

Three passenger jets - two from Greece to New York and one British Airways flight from Berlin - have been diverted after bomb hoaxes in the last 10 days.

Lufthansa said that a bomb alert had been received shortly after the flight left Frankfurt at 0810 GMT (1010 local time).

"We came to the conclusion with the German authorities that this alert was not serious," the spokeswoman said.

'Arabic accent'

There were 331 passengers and 18 crew on board the Boeing 747-400 jet.

All were evacuated from the aircraft as security experts began a search of the plane.

Cypriot civil aviation officials said the plane had landed at 1208 GMT (1508 local time).

A Lufthansa spokeswoman in Athens said the flight would be delayed by four hours, AFP reported.

An Israeli spokesman for Lufthansa, Yitzhak Zaroni, told Israel television station Channel 10 that the caller had spoken with an Arabic accent.

"While the plane was in the air, there was a telephone call in Germany that said there was an explosive device on the plane," Mr Zaroni said.

Source

Edited October 5, 2004 by Lottie

[Celumnaz]

It's nice to know there are some serious people out there. Go Israel Go!! Cheers!!