Turkish Airlines flight hijacked

A Turkish Airlines domestic flight carrying 203 people from Istanbul to Ankara was hijacked yesterday, the airline told Reuters.

The flight, taking off at 22:00 (2000 GMT), left Turkish airspace and later landed in Athens, Turkey's Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said.

Yildirim told the Turkish CNN Turk channel there was believed to be only one hijacker who was insisting on being taken to Berlin.

"We have information that he wants to go to Tegel (airport in Berlin," Yildirim said.

The state-run Anatolian news agency said the plane was carrying 194 passengers and nine crew.

Several senior Turkish bureaucrats were reported to be aboard the flight, a regular shuttle between the country's two biggest cities.

Turkey has been hit by several hijackings in recent years. In November 2002, Israeli security guards foiled a suspected hijacking attempt on an El Al Airlines flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul, overpowering a passenger armed with a pocket knife, witnesses and officials said. In October 1999, an EgyptAir Boeing 737 was hijacked when a lone Arabic-speaking hijacker demanded the plane be diverted from its journey from Istanbul to Cairo. It landed in Hamburg where the hijacker quickly surrendered to German police.