Gunman lands plane after crash threat

A man who stole a small plane and threatened to crash it into the European Central Bank in Frankfurt landed safely at the city’s airport, authorities said.

Military jets had been scrambled after the small single-engined plane began circling over the centre of the city, its red and white lights blinking on and off in the darkness several hundred meters above the skyscrapers in Germany’s financial capital.

Police have said they have arrested the man.

Earlier, in a call from his plane to news channel n-tv, the man had said he didn’t want to harm anyone, but intended to commit suicide once his fuel ran out in about two hours.

The main railway station and several skyscrapers in the country’s financial capital were evacuated as a precaution, and streets cleared in the downtown area of the city.

Police sent up a helicopter to try to force the plane away from the city, while two military jets were seen roaring back and forward across the evening sky.

The plane was stolen this afternoon from an airfield at Babenhausen, just to the southeast of Frankfurt, Axel Raab, a spokesman for the German air safety agency.

The man threatened the pilot of the plane with a weapon, then took over the controls and took off, Raab said.

Frankfurt airport, continental Europe’s largest, resumed flights interrupted while the stolen plan was in the air. Air traffic controllers had been in contact with the pilot.

N-tv said the man had said he wanted to draw attention to the death of an astronaut killed aboard the doomed US space shuttle Challenger in 1986.