BEIRUT // A passenger plane flying from Lebanon to Iraq on Thursday turned back after the Iraqi transport minister’s son missed the flight and phoned Baghdad to stop the aircraft from landing, Middle East Airlines said.
Marwan Salha, acting chairman of the airline, said the flight had been delayed for six minutes while airline staff looked for Mahdi Al Amiri, son of Hadi Al Amiri, and his friend in the business lounge.
“We made the necessary announcements and the last calls,” he said. “The plane took off but one of the passengers turned out to be the son of the minister of Iraq.”
Mr Salha said that when Mr Al Amiri arrived at the gate he was angry and said: “I will not allow the plane to land in Baghdad.”
Twenty-one minutes into the flight, the Baghdad airport station manager called airline operations to tell them there was no clearance to land, Salha said. The plane then returned to Beirut and the passengers disembarked.
“It’s very disturbing because this is pure nepotism,” Mr Salha said, adding that he hoped to resume flights to Iraq on Friday but that there would not be another flight on Thursday.
The transport minister Hadi Al Amiri is head of the Badr Organisation, once an armed Shiite militia, and a political ally of the prime minister Nouri Al Maliki.
Many Iraqis believe that relatives of elected officials and leaders of political parties act as if they are above the law.
Iraq’s transport ministry confirmed the airliner had been turned around but said this was due to airport cleaning and that the minister’s son had not been due to be a passenger on it.
“This information (about the minister’s son) is not true and the minister is not accepting such behaviour. The minister’s son was not scheduled to take that flight at all,” said Kareem Al Nuri, the transport minister’s media adviser.
An official at Baghdad airport, who asked not to be named, said air traffic was normal, with 30 flights landing on Thursday. The only one turned around was the one from Beirut.
* Reuters
