Bulgaria staged an anti-terrorism exercise at the Sofia airport on Tuesday, involving for the first time a "hijacked" airplane, local media reported Wednesday.
The exercise, code-named "Silver Bird," was jointly conducted by the Bulgarian Interior Ministry, the Sofia Airport Authority, the State National Security Agency (DANS), the Health Ministry, the Defense Ministry and the Civil Defense.
The first word that a Boeing 737-500 of national carrier Bulgaria Air had been "hijacked" was received at 8 a.m. local time(0600 GMT) and a task force was formed immediately.
Nikolav Vasilev, chief of the task force, told reporters that three hypothetical terrorists, armed with one Kalashnikov submachine gun and two handguns, seized the airliner and demanded additional fuel to fly over the Mediterranean as well as 40 million euros (50.8 million U.S. dollars) in ransom.
In one episode during the six-hour drill, they also took hostage 23 people on board and threatened to kill them.
At the end of the exercise, the three were arrested and all the23 people were set free.
The exercise was designed to coordinate the actions of all responsible institutions in the event of a terrorist attack.
Source:Xinhua
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