"Two pilots and a passenger are injured. They were injured with an axe," Margrete Torseter, duty lawyer at Salten police district, told Aftenposten's Internet edition. "There is nothing to indicate that the alleged perpetrator used an axe that he had taken on board," Torseter said.
Flight leader Leif Sandham at Kato Air said that a crisis team was being assembled to take care of passengers and employees.
Police operation leader Arve Westgaard said that the axe used was taken from an overhead rack, and is carried on board to smash windows in an emergency situation.
"The man has been living in recent weeks at an asylum center in northern Norway," Westgaard said, and added that terrorism was not an aspect of the attack. The man's application for asylum had been rejected.
The three injured have been taken to hospital but are not said to have life-threatening injuries.
"The attack occurred during the descent into Bodø airport," said Ørjan Nyborg, manager of Kato Air. The plane, a Dornier 228, has room for 19 passengers. There were reportedly only eleven passengers on board the flight Wednesday.
Salten police said later Wednesday that the suspect's baggage had been searched later and a hunting knife discovered.
The Narvik airport, the plane's point of origin, has no security scanner to check boarding passengers. Such a device will be in place in January 2005 at the earliest.
