Chinese Airliner Hijacked

BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese jetliner on a flight from Beijing to southern China was hijacked Monday but the incident was resolved within four hours, an airport spokeswoman said. There was no immediate word of injuries or details of the hijacking.

The Air China plane was bound for the southern city of Changsha when it was hijacked and forced to land in the central city of Zhengzhou, said the spokeswoman for the Changsha airport. She would give only her surname, Ren.

The incident was resolved and the plane later left Zhengzhou for Changsha, Ren said. She said she had no details of how the hijacking occurred or how it ended.

Phone calls to Air China's headquarters, the Zhengzhou airport and the Chinese airline regulator's office weren't answered.

China suffered a string of airline hijackings in the mid-1990s, which prompted a massive increase in security measures at airports. Such incidents have been rare in recent years.