A drunk passenger tried to hijack a Turkish Airlines flight to Russia Wednesday before being brought under control, the head of Turkey's civil aviation authority has said.The Turkish Airlines passenger jet was en route from Turkey to Russia when the incident took place.The flight -- which originated in the southeastern Turkish city of Antalya -- was scheduled to land on time in St. Petersburg at 3:20 p.m. (7:20 a.m. ET), according to a spokeswoman for St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport.
Turkish aviation official Orhan Birdal had no further information about how the passenger was brought under control.
Turkish media initially reported that the plane had been hijacked. When asked about those reports, a Turkish Airlines spokesman said the flight experienced an "urgent situation" without offering further details.
Russia's Interfax News Agency said the flight was carrying 164 Russian nationals.
"The Russian Embassy in Turkey is trying to find out the circumstances, which led to the incident, and the man's nationality," Sergei Koritsky, press attache at the Russian Embassy in Turkey, told Interfax.
There have been several attempts to hijack Turkish airlines in recent years.
In August 2007, two men hijacked an Istanbul-bound Atlasjet Airlines flight with 136 passengers and crew on board from Cyprus, claiming to have a bomb on board the flight. They forced the crew to make an emergency landing in Antalya. Both hijackers eventually surrendered to Turkish authorities.
In April 2007, Turkish authorities detained a man they believed tried to hijack a Turkish airliner, possibly to Iran. The suspect, Mehmed Goksin Gol, was not armed and all 178 passengers and crew aboard the Pegasus Airlines flight were unharmed.
The flight was heading from southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir to Istanbul, but landed at Ankara's airport, where the suspect was detained.
In October 2005, a Turkish man hijacked a Turkish jetliner with 113 people aboard en route from the Albanian capital Tirana for Istanbul. He forced it to fly to a military airfield in Brindisi, Italy, where the passengers and crew were released unharmed
