(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency) The British government denied Sunday media reports that a passenger jet en route to Egypt last August had a near miss with a missile attack. The statement comes in the wake of the recent suspected bombing of a Russian passenger jet over the Sinai desert, killing all 224 aboard.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said an investigation was carried out and the Thomson Airways plane had never been in any danger.
"I'm pretty sure that (missile incident) was a red herring and we have a very good explanation of what actually happened," Hammond said in a televised interview. "There was an Egyptian military exercise going on on the ground and I think I was satisfied - everybody in our system was satisfied - at the end of that investigation that that was not an attempt on the plane. The plane was not in danger at any time." A report in the UK newspaper the Daily Mail on Saturday (November 7) quoted a source in saying the pilot of a Thomson Airways holiday jet on approach to Sharm al-Sheikh on August 23 was forced to take evasive action to avoid a rocket that came within 1,000 feet of it. It was the same airport the fated Russian flight would take off from on October 31.
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