Passengers onboard hijacked Saudi jet reportedly released

All passengers on board the hijacked Saudi jet in Baghdad have been released and the hijackers arrested, according to local Iraqi reports. The hijackers were reportedly an Ethiopian and four Saudis who are seeking asylum in Iraq. The nationality of the hijackers was reported on Qatari satellite television station, al-Jazirah. The station did not give a source for its brief news break.

The plane, believed to have been carrying 95 mainly British passengers and at least 16 crew, earlier landed in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The plane was carrying 40 Britons and one American among a list of 90 passengers of several nationalities, the company announced. Also on board the plane were 15 Saudis, 15 Pakistanis, four South Africans, four Yemenis and two Kenyans. The passenger list included one French person, an Indian, an Omani, one Lebanese, a Nigerian, a Palestinian, a Spaniard, a Swede and a Swiss national. The Saudi deputy defence minister for aviation affairs, Prince Fahd bin Abdullah bin Mohammad, said there were a total of 111 people aboard, including 16 crew. A member of the Saudi royal family was believed to have been on board.

The Boeing 777-200 was hijacked on a flight between Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and London's Heathrow airport. It had taken off from Jeddah but air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane after receiving an initial message just before 1.00pm. The hijackers threatened to blow up the plane, claiming they were in possession of the explosive, TNT.

Egyptian officials who received the alert from the aircraft's pilot said that the hijackers had requested to go to Syria. Beirut airport authorities said that they would deny the Boeing 777-200 permission to land and took measures to close the airport in case it flew to the Lebanese capital. Barricades were placed on the runways in Beirut airport to prevent the plane from landing, the sources added. The 289-seater twin-engine aircraft is one of 16 in the Saudi Arabian Airline fleet.

The Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 115 had been scheduled to land at Heathrow this afternoon. At Heathrow, relatives and friends were waiting to welcome home passengers on the hijacked flight. When they inquired at the information desk about the flight, for which no expected time of arrival was listed on screens, they were led away by airport officials to a side room. Many of the relatives, some of them with young children carrying flowers, appeared shocked and upset.