British Airways flight intercepted by Nato fighter jets after radio silence

German Eurofighter Typhoons were quickly scrambled, fearing a possible terror incident.

But now authorities are investigating if the captain and first officer of Flight BA899 simply dozed off.

The pair did not respond to calls on either main or back-up frequencies for around half an hour.

A source familiar with the matter told The Sun the crew was “pretty embarrassed” when contact was restored.

“You could hear the conversation between the British Airways pilots and a fighter jet pilot on the emergency frequency,” the source said.

“The pilots wanted to avoid the passengers getting worried, and asked the fighter jets to stay behind the plane.

“But the order of the fighter jets was to inspect the cockpit so he had to fly parallel to the plane.”

The fighter jets successfully concluded the inspection and found “no terrorism”, the source added.

The jets stayed with the BA flight until the German border.

BA is now investigating the incident.

The pilots are still flying on the airline.

“All of the procedures for situations like this were followed,” the airline told The Sun.

Fear of a possible hijacking may have spiked after Hammam al-Hammami, an Omani national, allegedly attempted to commandeer Flydubai Flight FZ1073 just weeks ago.

The suspected hijacker attempted to take control of the flight, but was fought off by Indian pilot Smit Machchhar and fellow passengers, including an off-duty British pilot.

And, on Monday, a flight from Tel Aviv and bound for Vienna was forced to make an emergency landing following a “bomb threat”.

Prolonged Loss of Communication – or PLOC – is taken extremely seriously by airlines, with any silence longer than a few minutes likely to be met with scrambling fighter jets.