Indian plane hijacking a hoax

By Satinder Bindra
CNN New Delhi

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) - The reported hijacking of an Alliance Air Boeing 737 with 54 passengers on board turned out to be a false alarm, India's civil aviation minister said early Thursday.

The incident was triggered by an anonymous phone call to ground controllers by someone reporting a hijacking.

Staff alerted the pilot of the plane, who immediately took safety precautions, locking the cockpit door and landing at the nearest airport -- New Delhi, Civil Aviation Minister Shahnawaz Hussain said.

"It was not a mock exercise or a planned exercise. We had assumed that the plane had been hijacked and the prime minister was also awake and was being informed," Hussain told reporters.

The plane was on a domestic flight from Mumbai to New Dehli, and landed at 12:55 a.m. Thursday.

Commandos immediately surrounded the plane and India's crisis management group met.

Passengers told the commandos they thought they landed because of a technical problem and were not aware of any 'hijack'.

Many factors contributed to the confusion.

The pilot assumed that the hijackers were with the passengers, while the passengers, after being informed about the situation, thought that the hijackers were in the locked cockpit.

Adding to the confusion, an official without official identification tried to enter the cockpit.

All passengers have been released and are safe.

Although the hijacking turned out to be a false alarm, the incident demonstrates the fear in the minds of the India's flying public originating from the September 11 attacks on the United States and heightened tension in the country.

Airports have been on alert for the past several days following a threat from a militant group fighting for independence on the Indian side of Kashmir, a disputed territory on the border with Pakistan. The group said it might target airport facilities.

On Monday, Kashmir's state assembly in Srinagar was hit by a suicide car bombing that killed at least 35 people.