A passenger plane flying from Lebanon to Iraq on Thursday turned back after the Iraqi transport minister’s son missed the flight and phoned Baghdad to stop the aircraft from landing, Middle East Airlines (MEA) said.
Marwan Salha, acting chairman of MEA, told Reuters the flight, scheduled to leave at 1240 (1040 GMT), had been delayed for six minutes while MEA staff looked for Mahdi al-Amiri, son of Hadi al-Amiri, and his friend in the business lounge.
“We made the necessary announcements and the last calls,” he said. “The plane took off but one of the passengers turned out to be the son of the minister of Iraq.”
Salha said that when Amiri arrived at the gate he was angry and said: “I will not allow the plane to land in Baghdad.”
Twenty-one minutes into the flight, the Baghdad airport station manager called MEA operations to tell them there was no clearance to land, Salha said. The plane then returned to Beirut and the passengers disembarked.
“It’s very disturbing because this is pure nepotism,” Salha said, adding that he hoped to resume flights to Iraq on Friday but that there would not be another flight on Thursday.
Transport Minister Hadi al-Amiri is head of the Badr Organisation, once an armed Shi’ite militia, and a political ally of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Many Iraqis believe that relatives of elected officials and leaders of political parties act as if they are above the law.
viaMEA plane returns to pick Iraqi minister’s son it left behind – Al Arabiya News.
Irak var ett av de mest korrupta länderna något år sedan, och det verkar inte ha ändrats. Ett flygplan från Libanon till Irak, väntade länge på en person, när personen inte dök upp, flög det till Bagdad, när det skulle landa, visade det sig att personen som inte dök upp, var son till Transportministern, en shia, och denna person såg till att flygplanet inte fick landa på flygplatsen och fick vända tillbaka till Beirut.
Den som läst historia, vet hur Uday och Saddam betedde sig och den som kan nåt om historia vet att Othman den 3 kalifen, var sådan här och därför han mördades
De tär bisarrt att inte ministern utan hans son har sådan makt och gör sådana här skämmiga saker mot Irak och irakierna.