A Chinese man with a history of mental illness tried to hijack a domestic Air China flight to South Korea on Monday, but the airliner made an emergency landing in central China and police detained the would-be hijacker.
Yang Jinsong, a 32-year-old librarian from southern Hunan province, tried to take over flight CA1343, a Boeing 737, en route from Beijing to the southern city of Changsha in Hunan minutes after it took off, Xinhua news agency reported.
The flight, which a Beijing airport official said was carrying 108 passengers, made an emergency landing in the city of Zhengzhou. No one was injured.
About 10 minutes after take-off, Yang told the crew that he had companions on board carrying sulphuric acid that they would throw over passengers unless the plane headed for South Korea, Xinhua said.
It was not clear why he wanted to go to South Korea.
"It has already been handled successfully and we are investigating it," a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said.
The plane landed in Zhengzhou, in the central province of Henan, at about 9:50 a.m. (0150 GMT), the aviation administration said in a statement.
Two plainclothes police were sent to negotiate with Yang on board the plane and he was detained at 10:20 a.m. (0220 GMT), Xinhua said.
Police found no sulphuric acid or other hijackers on the plane and it took off for its original destination shortly after, Xinhua said.
Yang had a history of mental illness, CAAN said without giving details.
The plane reached Changsha at about 2:35 p.m. (0635 GMT).
China saw a rash of hijackings in the early 1990s, mostly by people demanding to go to Taiwan, and it later tightened air safety.
