Iranian aircraft security guards overpowered a man who tried to hijack a plane by dousing himself in industrial alcohol and threatening to set himself alight.
The official IRNA news agency said the armed guards, present on all Iranian flights, pounced on the man as he tried to enter the cockpit during the flight last night.
The private Mahan Air plane, carrying 138 passengers from the southeastern city of Kerman, later landed safely at its destination, Tehran.
Iranian passenger planes have carried plain clothes Revolutionary Guards agents since a spate of hijackings in the 1980s by Iraq-based rebels.
The agents foiled a hijack attempt on another domestic flight in November 2000.
A Revolutionary Court sentenced three hijackers to death and 15 other people, most of them members of the same family, to prison terms ranging from 18 months to 10 years. The family had wanted to flee the country.