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Sweden suspends all flights to Iraqi
Kurdistan
14.8.2007
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August 14, 2007
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Sweden has suspended
commercial flights to and from Kurdistan region
(Iraq) after an apparent rocket attack against a
passenger jet as it took off from the northern city
of Sulaimaniyah, the Nordic country's aviation
authority said Tuesday.
In the incident last Wednesday, pilots of the Nordic
Airways plane carrying 130 passengers noticed a
trail of light arching over the aircraft just after
takeoff, Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Anders
Lundblad said.
The McDonnell Douglas MD83 plane was not hit, and
arrived safely in Stockholm. |
Nordic Airways |
Lundblad said the incident was being investigated,
but that preliminary information suggested "some
kind of rocket" was fired at the plane.
The authority suspended all commercial airline
traffic between Sweden and Iraqi Kurdistan
autonomous region last week pending a review of the
security situation in Kurdistan region (northern
Iraq).
On Saturday the chairman of the Sulaimaniyah
International Airport Authority, Kamaran Ahmed, said
a local investigation found
no
evidence that a missile was fired and
blamed the scare on bright lights being used on the
ground.
"We think that the object that had been noticed by
the pilot 'suspiciously' was a special type of 'high
intensity lighting projector' mounted on vehicles
usually used by hunters in the area," he said, in a
statement in English.
It also is rare for such violence to occur in
Sulaimaniyah, a city in Iraq's relatively peaceful
autonomous Kurdistan region, 160 miles northeast of
Baghdad.
The Swedish decision affected two small airlines:
Nordic Airways, which flies once a week between
Stockholm and Sulaimaniyah, and Viking Airlines,
which operates four flights a week between Stockholm
and Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan (northern Iraq).
Nordic Airways had rebooked passengers departing
from Iraq on other airlines, while some 3,000 people
booked on Viking Airlines flights were stranded in
Iraq, the aviation authority said.
Sweden is home to more than 70,000 Iraqi immigrants,
many of whom come from the Kurdish areas in northern
Iraq.
Mikael Wangdahl, Chief Executive of Nordic Airways
said the incident was immediately reported to air
traffic controllers and the U.S. military. The
pilots then were advised to continue the flight, but
to take a shorter route.
According to a spokesperson for the Swedish Civil
Aviation Authority, the US military is investigating
a break-in at a weapons store in the vicinity of the
airport in Kurdistan region (northern Iraq).
The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs could not
confirm that they had received any information
regarding the arms robbery.
Passengers and cabin crew did not notice what
happened, Wangdahl said, but crew members were
briefed about it after the plane landed in
Stockholm.
The Sulaimaniyah airport, a former Iraqi military
landing strip used in the Iran-Iraq war and later
deserted, was reopened by Kurds cooperating with
U.S. forces in early 2003, weeks before the start of
the war.
AP | sr se
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