Hijack Attempt Foiled On El Al Flight

Security guards on Israel's national El Al airline overpowered a man who tried to hijack a flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul on Sunday, an airport official said.

None of the 170 passengers on board was harmed and the plane landed safely, said Oktay Cakirlar, an official at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport.

The semiofficial Anatolia news agency identified the hijacker as Tawfiq Fukra, a 23-year-old Israeli Arab.

Cakirlar said El Al Flight 581 sent out a hijacking signal as it approached Istanbul but the suspect was overcome.

``No one was injured,'' Cakirlar told The Associated Press by telephone. ``The terrorist is in custody at the police station at the airport.''

Turkey's private CNN-Turk and NTV televisions quoted police sources as saying that the alleged hijacker was an Israeli Arab and was armed with a knife.

The television reports said the man was overpowered by two Israeli security guards aboard the plane.

He reportedly first threatened a flight attendant with a knife and tried to approach the cockpit but he was overpowered by two security guards, one posing as a passenger, CNN-Turk television said.

The suspect was being held at the airport police station.

``We heard people saying there was fighting and half a minute later it became clear that from row five or six a man ran amok toward the pilot's cabin, attacked a stewardess and tried to enter the cockpit,'' an Israeli passenger on the plane told Israel army radio.

``We saw a stewardess running like crazy from the front of the place to the business section. ... She was terrified,'' said the passenger, identified only as Menachem.

Security guards ``threw him to the floor with his legs spread and his face to the floor. The passengers were hysterical but the flight attendants were very cool, they calmed us down,'' he said.

At the airport, passengers could be seen going through security checks and passport control.

El Al is widely regarded as the best protected airline in the world, but also one of the most threatened. From the late 1960s into the 1980s, El Al planes and passengers were subjected to shooting attacks, hijacking and bombing attempts.

El Al's formidable security includes armed guards at check-in, on-board marshals and extensive searches of luggage. Passengers are told to arrive three hours ahead of flights to allow enough time for the security checks.