The would-be hijacker, named as Cuma Yasar, said shortly before the scheduled landing that he had a bomb on him, the sources were quoted as saying.

The suspect, who comes from a Kurdish village in the southeastern region of Anatolia, headed for the cockpit of the Boeing 737-800 less than an hour before arrival at Istanbul and demanded that the aircraft return to Oslo, claiming to have a bomb.

But the 40-year-old was tackled by Turkish and Norwegian passengers and the plane landed safely at Istanbul's Ataturk airport at 1930 GMT.

The suspect was immediately arrested. No explosive device was found, CNN-Turk said.