Turkish official: Passenger tried to divert plane to Sochi with bomb threat
The Opening Ceremony for the Sochi Olympics was on Friday. (Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty Images)
According to a Turkish official, an Istanbul-bound plane landed safely after a passenger claiming there was a bomb on board tried to divert it to Sochi, Russia, the Associated Press reports. The Winter Olympics began Thursday in Sochi.
The Wall Street Journal, citing the Interfax news agency, later reported that the man was "heavily drunk." No one was injured, and the paper reported that the man hadn't entered the plane's cockpit.
Habib Soluk, Turkey's transport ministry undersecretary, told a television station that the plane was traveling from Ukraine. It landed at Sabiha Gokcen airport in Istanbul.
"While the plane was in the air, one of the passengers said that there was a bomb on board and asked the plane to not land in Sabiha Gokcen but rather to land in Sochi," Soluk said Friday on CNNTurk.
Associated Press
The Journal
