French plane turned back from the US over passenger on terrorist list
09.07.05
US authorities have ordered an Air France flight from Paris to Chicago to turn around after two hours in the yesterday evening, over concerns about a passenger. Flight AF050 landed at Charles de Gaulle airport at 19:15 local time on Friday, four hours after taking off from the same airport.
'After the plane had left the US reacted and said that one of the passengers had a name that was on their list,' French police said. The passenger in question plus 4 others were taken for checks. There was no information has been released on the names of the passengers, their age or nationalities.
French police said flights from France to Britain and the United States were being treated with extra caution following Thursday's bomb attacks in London. Air France said the flight would take off again later yesterday evening, after it had been checked over.
Yesterdays incident follows a number of earlier problems on flights between Europe and the USA. In May flights from both Italy and France to Boston were diverted because of concerns about passengers on board. And in September last year a flight carrying the singer Cat Stevens to the US was diverted because the name he adopted when he became a Muslim, Yusuf Islam, was on the US no-fly list.
