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Russian police quiz plane passengers after drunken hijack attempt

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ST. PETERSBURG, October 15 (RIA Novosti) - All passengers on a plane that flew from Turkey to Russia on Wednesday were kept on board for over an hour for police questioning, after a drunken man claiming to have a bomb caused a terrorist scare.

All 164 passengers on the Turkish Airlines flight from the resort city of Antalya to St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport have now been let off the plane.

The culprit, aged 52, had demanded that the pilot fly the plane to Strasbourg, northwest transport prosecutor Alexander Bebenin told reporters.

After landing, "special service officers entered the aircraft and took the suspect to the airport police station... investigators are looking into the incident," he said.

The airline earlier told Turkey's NTV channel that the passenger, who had been drinking heavily, handed a note to a stewardess saying he was carrying explosives. He was later restrained by another passenger.

A St. Petersburg transport police official told RIA Novosti that the suspect was Uzbek-born, and the CNN-Turk channel gave his name as Yashar Pashaoglu.

During the incident, Turkish media reported that the Airbus A-320 jet had been hijacked by terrorists.

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