Man planned to crash plane in Frankfurt

IN A chilling reminder of the September 11 attacks, a man hijacked a light aircraft and threatened to crash into the European Central Bank tower in Frankfurt yesterday before landing and being arrested.

Military jets had been scrambled after the small single-engined plane began circling over the centre of the city, hundreds of metres above the skyscrapers in Germany’s financial capital.

The 32-year-old pilot told N-TV television he wanted to draw attention to a female astronaut who died in the US space shuttle Challenger which exploded shortly after take-off in January 1986.