Norwegian police officials said on Thursday an Algerian man had been jailed on preliminary charges of hijacking after attacking two pilots and a passenger with an axe aboard a domestic flight on Wednesday.
"He is charged with attempt to hijack a plane, and that carries a maximum prison sentence of 21 years in Norway," police attorney Trond Lakselvhaug said.
Police and witnesses said on Wednesday that the man launched his unexplained assault, injuring the two pilots and a fellow passenger, just as the small Kato Air plane from Narvik to Bodoe in northern Norway was about to land with seven passengers aboard.
He was overpowered by two passengers who came to the pilots' aid.
Witnesses said the pilots, covered in blood, managed to land the aircraft safely after the attack, launched when the plane was at about 30 metres (100 feet) after the attack. The attacker was arrested immediately upon arrival.
The charges of hijacking are preliminary, but form the basis for a court order to keep the man jailed for the next four weeks as police carry out their investigation and prosecutors build a case for an indictment.
"It is also the charge that we think at this stage of the case is the right charge, but the investigation will confirm or reject that charge," Lakselvhaug said.
The man's publicly appointed attorney Svein Skipnes said that so far the police had only spoken of charging him with attempting to crash the plane and had not used the word "hijacking".
"It is a dramatic situation whatever you call it, and it would be the same under Norwegian law," Skipnes said. "As far as I see it, he tried to get the plane down -- that is what witnesses and the pilots say. He says he does not remember anything about this," Skipnes said.
"He remembers getting on the plane, and the next thing he remembers is one or two passengers holding him down," Skipnes said.
The 34 year old man was transferred on Thursday from a psychiatric hospital, where he had been examined, to a jail in Bodoe, the Salten police district said in a statement.
Norway has little experience of hijacking, but in 1993 three Iranians hijacked a Russian Aeroflot aircraft with 50 people aboard to Oslo from Baku, Azerbaijan.
