Following the landing on Iranian soil of a US-chartered plane en route from Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan to Dubai, the governor of the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan, where the plane touched down on Friday, told Tasnim News Agency, “We were forced to order the plane to land because its captain provided us with wrong information. The move was designed to get things cleared up.” The following is an excerpt of the report the news agency filed on the governor’s comments:
Hormozgan Governor Jasem Jaderi said the plane, which belonged to a private UAE company, was in Iranian airspace without having its route registered in the Iranian air corridor. “We asked the captain to provide us with information, but he gave us some contradictory accounts, so we ordered the plane to land at Bandar Abbas Airport.”
He went on to say, “On the ground, the pilot admitted that the information he had provided was wrong. When the plane, which had 140 passengers on board, including 110 Americans and some other military personnel from NATO countries, was cleared to take off, the pilot refused to take the controls, citing it was past his flight time and requested that another pilot take over.”
The governor added, “Bandar Abbas Airport even supplied the plane with fuel. We treated them well, they tried not to cooperate with us, though. Not a single military man approached the plane on the tarmac and the crew was only contacted by the airport manager. They were afraid since their entry into Iranian airspace was illegal and they had given us misleading information. They even turned down our offer to freshen up at the airport.”
