Istanbul, Turkey ? Security guards on an Israeli jetliner overpowered a suspected hijacker who tried to storm the cockpit, apparently armed with a pen knife.

The incident occurred on El Al Flight 581, en route from Tel Aviv to Istanbul, Turkey.

None of the 170 passengers were harmed and the plane landed safely, said Oktay Cakirlar, an official at Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport.

The semi-official Anatolia news agency identified the hijacker as a 23-year-old Arab with an Israeli passport.

Passengers said the man threatened a flight attendant, then tried to kick in the door to the cockpit. But he was unable to break in because the door was locked.

Two security guards posing as passengers quickly overpowered the man, who was armed with a knife.

“Someone from the front of the plane went with a knife to the girl from the crew, she pushed him, and she cried,” Menahem Binet, an Israeli passenger, told reporters at the airport. “One of the El Al security came and pushed him to the floor.”

Cakirlar, the Turkish official, said the Boeing 757 sent out a hijacking signal as it approached Istanbul. “The terrorist is in custody at the police station at the airport,” he said

The suspect, a tall, thin man with dark features, was later seen being taken out of the airport in handcuffs by undercover police.

Istanbul police chief Hasan Ozdemir said the suspect was being interrogated.

The general manager of El Al, Amos Shapira, confirmed the suspect was an Israeli Arab but refused to identify him.

Rosa Russo, a passenger of the El Al Flight 581, is welcomed by an unidentified relative after she arrives at Istanbul Ataturk International Airport, Turkey. Security guards on Israel's national airline El Al overpowered a man who tried to hijack the flight Sunday from Tel Aviv to Istanbul. None of the 170 passengers on board the Boeing 757 was harmed and the plane landed safely, said Oktay Cakirlar, an official at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport.

“What we know is that just some minutes before landing, one of the passengers tried to reach the cockpit with what we assume now is a small pocket knife,” Shapira told The Associated Press. “Then within some seconds he was taken under control of our security guards and the event was terminated.”

It was unclear how the man was able to get a knife past El Al’s formidable security. Israel’s national airline is widely regarded as world’s most protected airline.

Nehama Snelzo, an Israeli tourist, said the man looked scared when he was overpowered.

“He started saying ‘I’m going to Istanbul to see a friend, I’m not a threat,”‘ Snelzo said.

Another passenger, Viv Gulmez, said the man was sitting just in front of her and he looked suspicious.

“He was going to toilet very often, and once he made a telephone call from the plane,” Gulmez told private CNN-Turk television. “I did not hear what he was speaking, but I heard him telling the passenger next to him that he called a friend to say he was going to Istanbul.”

Snelzo said flight attendants made an announcement after the incident.

“They said the man threatened one of the stewardesses with a knife,” Snelzo said. “They told us not to get scared, to sit down, not to get up and be calm.”

Passengers left the airport nearly four hours after the plane landed. Authorities conducted a body search as well as a detailed search of their bags during the security checks.

Relatives of passengers who huddled at the airport were happy to meet their loved ones.

“Tonight it was a very lucky night for us,” said Izzet Anah, who rushed to the airport to meet his mother-in-law, Suzan Natan.”

Highest security, most threatened

Though it is widely regarded as the world’s most protected airline, El Al is also the most threatened. From the late 1960s into the 1980s, El Al planes and passengers were subjected to shooting attacks, hijacking and bombing attempts.

El Al’s security includes armed guards at check-in, on-board marshals and extensive searches of luggage. Passengers are told to arrive three hours ahead of flights to allow enough time for the security checks.

On the Fourth of July, an Egyptian immigrant, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, opened fire at the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles Airport, killing two people before he was shot dead by an airline security guard. Nothing was found to link the incident to terrorist groups and the motive remained unknown.

Last hijacking in ’68

The first and last successful hijacking of an El Al plane was in July 1968, when a flight from Rome was seized by members of the extremist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and forced to land in Algiers. Passengers and crew were held hostage there, with the last of them not released until five months later.

A September 1970 hijacking attempt failed when sky marshals shot and killed one hijacker and captured his accomplice. After that, Palestinian groups hijacked other airliners flying to and from Israel, including an Air France plane that was forced to land at Entebbe, Uganda, in June 1976. The hijacking ended in a rescue operation carried out by Israeli commandos.