U.S. authorities stopped an Air France flight on its way to Mexico from entering U.S. airspace after learning one of the passengers was on the terrorist watch list, the U.K.'s Telegraph newspaper reported.
The April 18 flight from Paris to Mexico was carrying journalist Gernando Calvo Ospina, who has written about revolutionary movements in Cuba and Colombia, and is currently researching a book about the CIA, the Telegraph reported.
Ospina was told of the incident by the plane's co-pilot.
"I was speechless and my first reaction was to ask, 'Do you think I'm a terrorist?'," Ospina told the Telegraph. "He replied 'no' and said that was why he told me about it, adding that it was extraordinary and the first time it had happened on an Air France plane."
There were no scheduled stops in the U.S., and the passenger list was only given to Mexican authorities, the Telegraph reported.
The flight was forced to divert to the French Caribbean island of Martinique before continuing on, the Telegraph reported.
Ospina was on his way to Nicaragua to research a report, a spokesman for Ospina's Frence publisher told the paper.
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