Air France hijack scare a bad joke, police

News of a hijacking attempt on a Thursday's Montreal-Paris flight operated by Air France was a hoax, Canadian police said.

The man behind the joke is a 56 year-old Canadian who told authorities a Moroccan man on the flight, Mouad Majdoul, intended to blow up the plane, which landed safely at the Paris airport.

The man, whose identity was not revealed, acknowledged that he wanted to prevent Majdoul, who, he said, owed him some 60,000 Canadian dollars, from flying to Paris. He faces up to five years imprisonment.

According to a journalist of Canada Radio who was sitting next to Majdoul, the Canada-settled Moroccan did not have any suspect behavior during the flight, which proceeded normally.

After the Boeing 767 arrived at Charles De Gaulle Airport, authorities searched the plane with dogs and found nothing suspicious.