Iran forces Hungarian aircraft to land

Plane carrying military staff allowed to continue to Afghanistan after "administrative error" ironed out.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
iran jets cool 224.88 (photo credit: AP [file])
iran jets cool 224.88
(photo credit: AP [file])
Iran forced an aircraft carrying Hungarian military officials to land in a mix-up over whether it had permission to enter its airspace, Hungary's Defense Ministry said Tuesday. The plane was later allowed to continue to Afghanistan. The ministry said the airplane, carrying a four-member Hungarian military delegation, had permission to fly over Iran, but that because of an "administrative error," characters in the craft's call signal were changed around and Iranian authorities did not recognize it. It said the plane landed in Tehran. "After clearing up the problem, the airplane was able to continue its journey to Afghanistan," the ministry said in a statement released in Budapest. It said the incident took place on Sept. 30. The military personnel were part of a Hungarian team that took over direction of Kabul's international airport this month, it said. They were flying in a civilian Hawker 800 plane rented from the private Hungarian firm JAS Cargoways. Iran's semi-official Fars news agency had initially reported that the plane was American and was carrying five military officials and three civilians from Turkey to Afghanistan when it accidentally strayed into Iranian airspace. Fars said the craft was forced by Iranian planes to land at an airport for questioning. The report prompted a denial from the US military's Central Command, which said in a statement from its headquarters in Doha, Qatar, that no American plane was involved. Later, Iran's official Arabic-language television station, Al-Alam, quoted an unidentified senior Iranian military official as saying the plane belonged either to a British or Hungarian relief agency. Both Iranian news reports said Iranian officials questioned the passengers and that the plane was allowed to continue to Afghanistan the following day.