The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 8/27/08 Section: News

** FILE ** In this Thursday, July 31, 2008 file picture Libyan anti-terrorism special forces attack a Libyan airline plane during a training exercise at their camp in Tripoli, Libya. A Sudanese hijacked passenger plane landed in Libya Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008, after leaving the town of Nyala in Darfur. A man holding a knife hijacked the plane carrying more than 100 people a security official said. The passenger plane was diverted to Libya after Egyptian authorities refused it entry, said the official, who described the hijacking from inside the Nyala airport, where the plane took off. (AP Photo/ Abdel Magid Al Fergany/file)

KHARTOUM, Sudan - A man waving a knife hijacked a jetliner carrying about 100 people Tuesday in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, forcing it to land at a World War II-era airfield in the heart of the Sahara Desert in neighboring Libya, officials said.

The Boeing 737 was commandeered soon after taking off from Nyala, capital of southern Darfur, en route to Khartoum, the national capital, said Yusuf Ibrahim, director of Khartoum's airport. He said it was not clear whether one or several hijackers were involved.

Libyan aviation officials confirmed the plane landed in Kufra, a desert oasis in that country's arid southeast close to the Sudanese and Egyptian borders.

Authorities were said to be traveling to Kufra, some 1,000 miles from Libya's capital of Tripoli. The airfield has little, if any, communications equipment, and Libyan officials said they had been unable to contact the hijackers since the plane landed.

The only contact was earlier from the pilot, who radioed a mayday signal to Tripoli requesting permission to land and refuel, said a Libyan security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media. By midnight, the plane had not refueled and it was unclear whether the Libyans would allow it to do so.

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