Israeli jet fighters forced a Lufthansa passenger plane bound for Tel Aviv to land in Cyprus yesterday due to a bomb threat.
Lufthansa said it had not judged the threat to be serious but that Israel had insisted on diverting the plane which was carrying 300 passengers.
It is the sixth time in just over a week that a plane has been diverted in Europe due to a security scare.
Flight 686 from Frankfurt, a Boeing 747-400, landed safely in Larnaca and security officials were preparing to check it, police in Cyprus said.
Lufthansa said the threat had been called in to the airline in Germany.
Eyewitnesses said the plane arrived just after 1500 hrs at the coastal air terminal in Larnaca, 45km south of the capital Nicosia. Passengers were being taken off.
A police source in Nicosia said security officials would wait for a "safety period" of 90 minutes from the time the threat was phoned in before boarding the plane to make checks.
"Passengers are being checked. But as far as going on to the actual aircraft is concerned we have to wait," the source said.
On Monday, a Singapore Airlines plane, was diverted to Britain's Manchester airport after a bomb threat on a flight to New York.
A Greek Olympic Airlines flight from Athens to London was also forced to land on the island of Corfu shortly after takeoff because of a bomb threat.
