Bureaucratic bungle forces plane carrying 100 Americans to land in Iran

A chartered aircraft carrying about 100 Americans from the U.S. airbase at Bagram, Afghanistan, has landed safely in Dubai after being diverted to Iran because of issues with its flight plan, the U.S. State Department said on Friday. The FlyDubai plane took off from Bandar Abbas, Iran, after being rerouted there. A U.S. official said the plane had failed to update its flight plan after leaving Bagram for Dubai several hours late.

We have nothing to indicate there was more to it. We really do view this as purely a bureaucratic issue.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf

When Iranian civil aviation officials identified the plane, they could not find it in their system because it was supposed to have flown through hours earlier, the official said. Iranian officials first asked it to turn around and then to land at Bandar Abbas when told it did not have enough fuel to return to Afghanistan, the official said. In a statement saying the plane had landed in Dubai, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that contrary to some media reports, “No Iranian jets were scrambled in this situation”.

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