Iranian official says plane with Americans was diverted because of ‘false information’
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Version 0 of 1. DUBAI — An airliner with a group of Americans that was diverted to Iran on Friday landed safely in Dubai early Saturday. The chartered flight, carrying about 100 Americans from Bagram air base in Afghanistan, was diverted to the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas because the crew had supplied “false information,” an Iranian official said Saturday. “The crew used false information so the authorities became suspicious. . . . Because the information provided was incorrect, we asked the airplane to land so we could gather more information,” said Jassem Jaderi, governor of Hormozgan province in southern Iran, according to the state-run Mehr News Agency. A U.S. State Department official said the plane had failed to update its flight plan after leaving Bagram several hours late for Dubai on a route that took it into Iranian airspace. In a statement Friday, the department described the incident as a “bureaucratic issue.” When Iranian civil aviation officials identified the plane, they could not find it in their system because it was supposed to have flown through hours earlier, the official said. Iranian officials first told the pilots to return to Bagram, but when told that the aircraft did not have enough fuel for the return trip, officials instructed the pilots to land at Bandar Abbas, the U.S. official said. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that contrary to some media reports, “no Iranian jets were scrambled in this situation.” “We appreciate the efforts of all parties to help the passengers get safely to their destination,” she added. The United States and Iran have not had direct diplomatic ties since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the subsequent seizure of the U.S. Embassy and its staff in Tehran in November of that year. The operator of the aircraft, FlyDubai, is based in the United Arab Emirates, which does have diplomatic ties with Iran. FlyDubai aircraft regularly fly in Iranian airspace. The company operates commercial flights between Iran and various points in the Persian Gulf region. Bandar Abbas, a city on the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the passageway from the gulf to the Arabian Sea, is the location of Iran’s main naval base, and its civilian airport is also used by the Iranian air force. Jaderi, the first Iranian official to comment, said that the passengers had been treated appropriately and were offered the use of the airport lounge facilities but that they declined the offer. — Reuters |