'Insane' Russian detained after hijacking scare: FSB

Moscow, Oct 24 (UNI) A passenger who threatened to blow up a plane flying from south Russia to Moscow today, was detained.

He is known to have a criminal record and a history of mental illness, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said.

The Boeing-737-500 airliner flying from Russia's southern resort city of Adler landed at Moscow's Vnukovo airport at 1805 pm (local time).

Media reports earlier said the plane had been hijacked, and the crew had been ordered to fly to Vienna.

A spokesman for the FSB told RIA Novosti the culprit was Oleg Vasyanovich, born in 1975. The man was in the past convicted of murder, but was put in a psychiatric hospital after being declared insane.

Commercial Sky Express airline, which owns the aircraft, said 130 people were on board the flight.

The incident recalls an attempted hijacking on October 15, on a flight from the Turkish resort of Antalya to St Petersburg. A man well-known to the Russian police and mental health authorities handed a note to a stewardess falsely claiming he had a bomb. UNI XC PD HS2202