by security forces. one would presume from that that the 110 passengers on board are off and safe. we don t quite know where this originated from. what the motive was. lots of things happen in midair that could be explained simply by erratic behavior. but, of course, people extraordinarily on edge at this point because of what s been happening behind me coinciding precisely with the opening ceremony. do we have a sense of the person who actually allegedly made this threat? do we know if they are in custody at this point? what do we know about that individual? reporter: i m only able to presume that given the statement from the transportation official, the turkish transportation ministry this person is in custody because the aircraft is in a safe zone. they have a place waiting set aside where any plane in any condition can be put down. this plane emitted a hijack signal while it was in the air according to multiple reports. that s, of course, where this process began.
making it very overt that something s happening on board. you literally just send out an electronic signal and the ground once that has happened, procedures go into place in some cases military aircraft will be scrambled to get as close as they can to see that which is happening, you know, visual contact. there is no better substitute than eyes looking at planes to see what the situation is. and then you ve got the situation where is the plane going to land. many countries have specific airports, the uk, for example, sends planes to an area where they already have a well-honed plan. they know what the what you don t want is uncertainty. so, the plane lands in istanbul in this case. everybody knows where it s going to be sent to. everybody knows which part of the airport it s going to be in. the security forces will know how to treat the aircraft in
we go directly to our correspondent ivan watson in sochi to give us the very latest. we have a report now of a person who was trying to hijack a plane that was trying to land at a turkish airport but they wanted the plane to go to sochi, the site of the winter olympics. what do we know about this individual and how the people are on board? reporter: the latest news we have right now, suzanne, is being reported by our sister news agency cnn turk. they re getting information from turkish security officials and they re reporting that turkish special forces have captured a man who has been described as a ukrainian passport holder who is suspected of trying to hijack a pegasus budget airline plane that was flying from ukraine to istanbul this evening as the opening ceremony of the winter olympics is under way in the stadium behind me. now, according to turkish
government officials, that man claimed that there was a bomb on board the aircraft. and then demanded that it be diverted here to sochi. the plane is at an airport in istanbul and, again, our sister network cnn turk reporting that the suspected hijacker has been captured by turkish security forces as the plane has been on the ground at one of istanbul s key airports and also being searched for any possible or suspected bombs or explosives. now, the passengers have been on board that plane as the search has been going on. and the turkish news agency dha has been reporting that they got the we are okay signal from the pilot of aircraft. who is presumed to still be on board that plane. suzanne? all right, ivan, appreciate
radio transmissions, but we re talking here about the barest information. the reason you may want to give this information not only because you re going to want help to sort out this situation, but you may be flying an aircraft that is now going to start making erratic movements. you may be deviating from your flight plan if you ve got, i mean, let s this is just in the realms of what can be. if you had a gun or a weapon to your head and you suddenly had to stop flying a different flight plan that was intended, that would set off all sorts of alarms and alerts and what you would be saying to the ground is, you know, this plane is no longer flying a normal flight plan under controlled circumstances. as expected. everybody beware. keep an eye out. and eventually you ll be given the information you require from where you need to go. that does sound like it was the destination. this was going to istanbul for