Reuters Company News Armed men stopped boarding German plane to Israel Friday September 27, 7:18 am ET (Adds details, quotes) FRANKFURT, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Two men armed with a knife and a pistol were stopped trying to board a German plane bound for Tel Aviv last week, but escaped by saying they were undercover security agents, an airline official said on Friday. German national airline Lufthansa said one of its security officials said he had caught the men trying to get on the plane as it was being prepared for departure to Israel at Frankfurt airport last Saturday. "We believe our employee and are taking the matter very seriously," Lufthansa spokesman Thomas Jachnow said. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily said Lufthansa had averted a possible hijacking. It said the men, who appeared to be Arabs, drove off across the runway in a car with airport plates after saying they were carrying out a security check. There was some confusion over whether the men had been carrying out a test to check security levels at Frankfurt airport, with a spokesman for the Interior Ministry telling a regular government news conference on Friday the German border police had not been involved in such an operation. A spokesman for the Transport Ministry told the news conference he believed the incident had been a routine test, although he said he did not know whether the men were airport police officers or some other security officials. "One of the men in question had a knife and the other one a toy gun," the spokesman said, adding that such tests had become more frequent since the September 11 suicide hijackings. "All I can say is that it would be unrealistic that these men show police identity cards, get back into the car and disappear if they had wanted to hijack a plane," he said, but noted the case was still being investigated. Joe Pries Commercial Aviation Photography Serving the airline industry with quality photography AOL IM AIRLINE72 http://www.joepries.com --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!