Lufthansa Flight to Tel Aviv Makes Emergency Landing

Haaretz is reporting that a Lufthansa flight bound for Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Greece after a fire was detected in the cargo hold.

Flight LH690, an Airbus 340-600, had departed from Frankfurt, Germany on Friday.

Lufthansa did not publicize the incident and it was not widely known until the Israeli newspaper reported on it today.

One of the 300 passengers on the plane told Haaretz that passengers panicked when the plane suddenly began to descend over Saloniki, Greece. The incident occurred only a few days after European skies were declared free of the ash from the Icelandic volcano that had prevented air traffic for days. The volcanic ash is thought to have the ability to cause an airplane to crash.

After spending two hours in Greece, the plane took off, later landing without further incident in Tel Aviv, its original destination.

A Lufthansa spokesperson spoke to Haartez, saying that a “smoke detector was activated in the cargo hold” while the plane was in the air.

"As passenger safety is Lufthansa's priority, the pilot decided to depart from his planned route and landed safely as the nearest airport, Saloniki, in order to allow a thorough inspection of the hold,” the spokesperson said.