Two men - dubbed "idiots not terrorists" - have been cleared of threatening to blow up a plane after a British judge ruled they had no case to answer.
Tayyab Subhani, 30, and Mohammed Safdar, 42, were arrested on May 24th after a Boeing 777 heading from Lahore, Pakistan, to Manchester, was forced to make an emergency landing at Stansted Airport.
It had been claimed Safdar, supported by Subhani, had made threats to kill crew and passengers after an argument broke out with air stewards at 30,000 feet.
But jurors at Chelmsford Crown Court were instructed to find the men, from Nelson in Lancashire, not guilty of endangering an aircraft.
Judge Charles Gratwicke described the case as "tenuous and peppered with inconsistencies". He added that "under the circumstances no jury can properly convict these men."
Prosecutor Brian O'Neill said "In light of the state of the evidence, it has been decided it is no longer appropriate to seek convictions in this case".
A series of witnesses told the court that although the men had acted like idiots, they had not heard a bomb threat.
Nadeem Sufi, captain of the Pakistan International Airlines flight PK709, originally alerted the authorities to the scare.
But he later told the court that, as the severity of the diversion became apparent, he tried to reverse this decision by telling air traffic control the men were "laughing and joking".
