Australian accused of threatening to blow up Russian plane

MOSCOW/CANBERRA - Russian police have detained an Australian man after he threatened to blow up an Aeroflot flight on its way from Tokyo to Moscow, Australia's foreign affairs department said on Friday.

The man was arrested when the Boeing 777 landed as planned at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted an airport spokesman as saying on Thursday.

"A 28-year-old Sydney man was detained after he tried to enter the cockpit of a Russian plane travelling from Tokyo to Moscow and threatened to blow up the plane," a spokesman for the Australian foreign affairs department told Reuters.

"Officials from the Australian embassy in Moscow are liaising with the local authorities and will provide the man with normal consular assistance."

It was not clear if the man was carrying any explosives or weapons.

"Right now we are trying to establish ... the motives for his action ... He will probably be given psychiatric tests to determine if he is mentally stable," Itar-Tass quoted the airport spokesman as saying.

At least 89 people died in Russia last September when two planes were brought down, apparently by explosives, within minutes of each other.

Separatists in Russia's rebel region of Chechnya were blamed for those attacks.

- REUTERS