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Ethiopian Airlines flight reportedly hijacked and flown to Geneva Hijacker arrested after Ethiopian Airlines flight forced to land in Geneva
(35 minutes later)
A hijacked Ethiopian airliner has landed at Geneva, an airport spokesman says. Swiss authorities have detained the hijacker of an Ethiopian Airlines flight that was forced to land at Geneva’s international airport early on Monday morning, airport police said, adding that passengers and crew were safe.
The Boeing 767-300 flight from Addis Ababa to Rome was flying The situation was “under control”, police said after flight ET 702 had been diverted from its original destination of Rome. The airline earlier said the flight from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa had been “forced to proceed” to Geneva.
over Sudan when it signaled a hijacking, reports say. An Ethiopian government spokesman, Redwan Hussein, told Reuters the flight had made a scheduled stop in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where he said the hijacker or hijackers might have boarded the flight.
Ethiopian Airlines said one of its flights was “forced to proceed” to Geneva, but all passengers and crew were safe at the airport, Reuters reported. It did not confirm the plane had been hijacked. “We don’t know where they are from or how many they are but it looks like the hijacker or hijackers boarded the flight in Khartoum,” Redwan told Reuters shortly before police announced they had detained the assailant.
It was not immediately clear who had seized the plane, if any demands had been made, or whether passengers and crew were still on board. A Geneva airport spokesman, Bertrand Staempfli, said a hijacked plane had landed early on Monday morning, without identifying the carrier. In an apparent recording of a radio communication between the aircraft and air traffic control posted on Twitter, a demand for asylum can clearly be heard.
The flight’s path, picked up on the site flightradar24.com, showed the plane circling numerous times over Geneva before landing. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the recording and it was not immediately clear whether it was a hijacker or pilot speaking from the plane. A flight tracking app showed the flight circling over the Swiss city several times before landing.
The airport was closed due to an “unspecified security incident”, CNN reported. “Hijacker held, situation under control, no injuries,” Swiss police said in a message to media.
An Ethiopian Airlines statement said flight 702 “on
scheduled service departing from Addis Ababa at 00:30 (local time)
scheduled to arrive in Rome at 04:40 (local time) was forced to proceed
to Geneva airport.
“Accordingly, the flight has landed safely at Geneva
airport. All passengers and crew are safe at Geneva airport,” it said.