Israeli sky marshals have foiled a suspected hijacking attempt on an El Al Airlines flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul, witnesses and officials said.
An El Al official said today Flight 581 landed safely in Istanbul after marshals overpowered a passenger armed with a pocketknife and none of the 170 passengers on board was hurt. A Turkish airport official said one "terrorist" was being held after the incident.
Turkey's Anatolian news agency named the suspected hijacker as Mr Tawfiq Fukra, a 23-year-old Israeli Arab.
Witnesses said the man tried to storm the cockpit of the plane before security guards on the plane caught him.
"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 towards the pilot's cabin, attacked a stewardess and tried to enter the cockpit," an Israeli passenger said.
"We saw a stewardess running like crazy from the front of the place to the business section . . . she was terrified," said the passenger.
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.
El Al is renowned as one of the most security-conscious airlines in the world after a number of high-profile hijackings and attempted hijackings in the 1970s. Its planes feature locked cockpits designed to thwart attempted hijackings.