A possible attempt to hijack a Qatar Airways flight from Jordan to Qatar was foiled on Thursday, a witness told Qatar-based Al Jazeera television. "Just after takeoff, one of the passengers moved towards the cockpit and, when one of the flight attendants stood in his way, he hit him (the attendant)," Samir Samri, a passenger on the flight, told Al Jazeera by telephone.
According to Samri, the man appeared to be about 20 years old and from an African country. "It might not have been a hijack attempt," he said. Samri said the man had been detained and that the plane had returned to the Jordan capital Amman minutes after taking off.
Thursday was a tense day for the global air transport industry. British police said a plot to cause "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" has been disrupted, causing chaos at airports across the UK.
They said terrorists planned to smuggle explosives aboard at least six airliners as hand luggage - which could have been missed during x-ray screening. The planes would then have been blown up in flight. Five US cities are thought to have been among the targets, including New York, Washington and Los Angeles.
Speaking at Scotland Yard, Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said the plot would have caused "mass murder on an unimaginable scale".
Home Secretary John Reid said the "main players" are in custody but he cautioned against complacency. "We are involved in a long, wide and deep struggle against very evil people," he said.
