Paperwork turns back China-bound Afghan flight

09 Aug 2009 18:26:33 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Updates with no bomb threat, previous BEIJING)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug 9 (Reuters) - A China-bound Afghan passenger flight was sent back to Afghanistan because it lacked the proper documents required to land, not because of a bomb or hijack threat, Afghan officials said.

China's Xinhua news agency had reported that Chinese authorities suspected the flight had been threatened by a bomb. But an air traffic official in Kabul and an airport police source in Kandahar said there was no such threat.

The plane, from Afghanistan's Kam Air airline, had departed from Kabul but landed in the southern city of Kandahar on its return because of high winds in Kabul, they said.

"It can go back to Kabul whenever it wants," the Kandahar airport police source said.

The sources said the flight was the first the airline had made on that route, and the airport in China's Xinjiang province denied it permission to land.

A press officer for NATO-led and U.S. forces in Kabul, Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo, said a plane had made a "precautionary landing" in Kandahar, but that there was no hijacking or bomb threat involved.

(Reporting by Ismail Sameem in KANDAHAR, Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL and Chris Buckley in BEIJING; writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Resource: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L946969.htm