Two men have been charged with endangering an aircraft after RAF Typhoon jets escorted a passenger plane over the UK. Tayyab Subhani, 30, and Mohammed Safdar, 41, both of Nelson, Lancashire, were detained at Stansted on Friday. Police boarded the Pakistan International Airlines flight, originally en-route to Manchester, after it was diverted to Stansted. The plane, flight PK709, left Lahore – the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab – at 09:35 local time (05:35 BST) on Friday and had been due to arrive in Manchester at 13:30 BST. One passenger told the BBC the pilot had informed them there had been threats. The airline said there had been 308 passengers on board, as well as 14 crew including pilots, with a mixture of Pakistani and British passport holders.
