Greek authorities are on high alert at Athens Eleftherios Venizelos airport.
Two flights, one to Dubai and the second to New York, forced to return to Athens, one of which was escorted by fighter jets.
According to the website of the Greek weekly Protothema, the CIA informed Athens airport at the end of the afternoon of the presence on board of a suspect, of Saudi origin, on one of the two flights from Athens.
The first, in the direction of Dubai had just taken off when it was forced to return to its starting point “
for technical reasons
” as announced by the pilot.
The passengers were then disembarked and searched by dozens of police officers.
“
We were scrutinized and even forced to
“says one of the travelers to the Greek site.
At the end of these searches, the passengers were able to return to their seats on board again and leave for Dubai more than three hours late.
The second, an Emirates airline flight, also identified as EK209, with 228 passengers on board and 18 cabin crew, had already taken off for New York.
While he was over Sardinia, Italy but also France would have refused an emergency landing.
The plane was therefore forced to turn around.
Immediately, and on NATO orders, F-16 type fighters took off from the Souda base in Crete to escort the flight to the Greek capital.
The aircraft carefully avoided overflying inhabited land for safety.
In the evening the car landed.
The police were deployed around the aircraft, on the tarmac.
The local media are trying to decipher this affair, especially since the Greek secret services would have deemed the alert important enough to convene a crisis unit.