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UK plane alert: Pair charged with endangering aircraft | |
(about 1 hour later) | |
Two men have been charged with endangering an aircraft after RAF Typhoon jets escorted a passenger plane over the UK. | Two men have been charged with endangering an aircraft after RAF Typhoon jets escorted a passenger plane over the UK. |
Tayyab Subhani, 30, and Mohammed Safdar, 41, both of Nelson, Lancashire, were detained at Stansted on Friday. | |
Police boarded the Pakistan International Airlines flight, originally en-route to Manchester, after it was diverted to Stansted. | |
The defendants are due at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court on Monday. | |
The plane, flight PK709, left Lahore - the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab - at 09:35 local time (05:35 BST) on Friday and had been due to arrive in Manchester at 13:30 BST. | |
One passenger told the BBC the pilot had informed them there had been threats. | |
The man said: "We did not know anything about it other than the pilots announced that they have landed at Stansted. | |
"And we landed, safely. Then he announced that he had a threat from someone, which was why he had landed the plane." | |
The plane remained at a spot on the north side of Stansted Airport with flights carrying on as normal, before being released by police about midnight allowing passengers to conclude their flight to Manchester. | |
The airline said there had been 308 passengers on board, as well as 14 crew including pilots, with a mixture of Pakistani and British passport holders. |