ABU DHABI, Dec 22: Two Arabs were arrested on Sunday for threatening to blow up a Royal Jordanian aircraft carrying 173 passengers in a dispute over in-flight food, the United Arab Emirates said.

After an emergency landing in Abu Dhabi, airport director Khaled Moghrabi said one was Libyan and the other Jordanian.

But Amman’s Information Minister Mohamad Adwan insisted no Jordanian was involved. Both were Libyan, he said.

“One of the passengers had an argument with a crew member over his meal requirement and told the crew that if he had a bomb he would blow up the aircraft,” Abu Dhabi’s Civil Aviation Department announced.

Flight RJ602 from Amman to Dubai, via Abu Dhabi, “landed on full emergency .... due to a bomb threat by a passenger onboard,” the department said in a statement.

“No bomb was found on board. Police have detained two passengers for interrogation. Further investigations are on.”

“The airport security services have arrested two passengers, a Libyan and a Jordanian, who threatened to blow up the plane,” Moghrabi said in a statement carried by the Emirates’ official WAM news agency.

“They are under questioning,” he added after a search revealed nothing on board Flight 602, which landed at Abu Dhabi International Airport at 3:10 am.

The Airbus A-340 was en route to the Emirates capital when the captain “sent an SOS as he approached Abu Dhabi,” the statement said.

“Measures were taken for an emergency landing. After landing at dawn, the plane was minutely searched but nothing was found, neither bomb nor explosives.” Abu Dhabi airport traffic was not disrupted, the statement added.

The Jordanian information minister identified the two men arrested as Mohamad Ali Hussein Ramadan and Abdel Nasser Faraj, both Libyans in transit from Tripoli to Dubai.

“One of them told a flight attendant five minutes before landing in Abu Dhabi that he had a bomb and was going to blow up the plane,” Adwan said in Amman. He was immediately overpowered by Jordanian sky marshals, who handcuffed him while conducting a minute search, the minister said.

“It was then that the second Libyan sitting behind him got up and said: ‘It’s me who’s going to blow up the plane’.

“He too was rapidly overpowered and the plane landed without problems at Abu Dhabi.”

The plane was allowed to fly on several hours later to Dubai, arriving at 9:09 am, before returning to Amman.—AFP