Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond (Picture: Jeff Overs/BBC/PA)

A British plane which had to dodge a missile while flying over Egypt on August 23 was not targeted deliberately, foreign secretary Philip Hammond claimed.

The Thompson plane carrying 189 passengers is said to have come within 1,000ft of the rocket over the Sinai desert, but the pilot took evasive action and the flight landed safely.

After flights continued on the route to Sharm el-Sheikh for another two months, journalist Andrew Marr asked the foreign secretary this morning on his BBC1 show: ‘Why did we not hear about it at the time?’

Hammond replied, ‘I looked very carefully at that at the time. I’m pretty sure that was a red herring and we have a very good idea of what actually happened. There was an Egyptian military exercise going on on the ground and I was satisfied at the end of our investigation.’




‘I was satisfied that was not an attempt on the plane. The plane was not in danger at any time.’

A Thomson flight had a close call (Picture: Rex)

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Andrew Marr carried on, asking whether it was possible that Islamic State had managed to get hold of surface to air missiles capable of bringing down jets among the ex-Iraqi military material they had seized.

Hammond replied: ‘It’s not impossible but we’ve seen no evidence yet that they do have this kind of equipment and clearly airlines and aviation security organisations take into account the risks when they set guidance to airlines about minimum heights they should fly at and areas that they should avoid altogether.’

Watch the whole interview here: