A hijacked Ethiopian Airlines flight was forced to overshoot its destination and circle Geneva, Switzerland, where it was eventually able to land. It was reported that the hijacker was in fact the co-pilot who took control of the plane when the other pilot was at the toilet.

The motivation for the hijacking was that he wanted an asylum in Switzerland; the aircraft was escorted for a period of time by the Geneva military as its fuel was running out.

Around three hours and 45 minutes after the hijack alert, Pacific Time, the aircraft had only 20 minutes of fuel left as it flew in Swiss airspace, and there were reports that one of its engines might be flaming out.

Some moments later, the flight was cleared to land, with a “hostage negotiator” heard speaking to the crew by radio, AirlineReporter.com said.

Geneva airport police said the situation was "under control" and that the hijacker had been "held". There were no reported injuries and the airport was temporarily closed, the police said.

Geneva is nearly 700 kilometres northwest of Rome, the aircraft’s original destination, if drawn on a straight line. The flight from Addis Ababa was supposed to take six hours and 10 minutes.

The plane was parked at a far end of a runway crowded with police and other emergency vehicles, with passengers filing out with their arms up in the air before getting onto waiting buses, according to a reporter at the scene.

The last hijacking of an Ethiopian flight, the report said, was in 1996, when the aircraft lost fuel and had to land in the sea.