Russia: Hijacked Airplane Said Heading for Israel

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Saturday November 11 8:11 PM ET Hijacked Russian Plane Said Heading for Israel

BAKU (Reuters) - A hijacked Russian airliner with 58 people on board, diverted from an internal flight in southern Russia, was heading for Israel after a refueling stop in Azerbaijan early on Sunday, an air traffic controller said.

``The plane was refueled and took off at 3.35 a.m. (2335 GMT). Its announced destination is Tel Aviv,'' the controller at Baku's Bina international airport told Reuters by telephone.

A spokesman for Israel's Airport Authority said earlier he had ``no information at all'' on the hijacked plane.

Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted a source in Moscow as saying the hijackers had asked for air traffic maps of various regions but did not say which maps had been given to them.

It said President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) and top security and police officials and diplomats had been informed about the seizure.

Russia's RIA news agency said it had learned that the plane had been hijacked by a single gunman.

Russia's Emergencies Ministry spokesman earlier said the Tu-154 airliner with 48 passengers, including two children, and 10 crew belonged to Dagestan Airlines and was flying to Moscow from Makhachkala on the Caspian Sea when it was hijacked.

``Gunmen demanded that the aircraft change course and fly to Tel Aviv,'' he said. ``The FSB (domestic security police) is dealing with the case.''

Makhachkala is the capital of Dagestan, which borders Russia's rebel territory of Chechnya.

The spokesman said the plane, powered by three rear-mounted jet engines, was in the area between Astrakhan and Volgograd on the Volga river when it was diverted at about 11:50 p.m. (2050 GMT) on Saturday.

He said the crew had decided to land and refuel in Baku. It landed at Bina airport at 2158 GMT.

Tass said Azeri authorities had held negotiations with the hijackers and that a special group of negotiators had left Moscow for Baku to try to secure the release of the hostages.

It was not clear whether the negotiations had yielded any result and if the gunmen had made any new demands.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), November 11, 2000


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