Coffee spill led to plunge of Serbian president's plane: report

Warsaw, Poland

THE nearly disastrous plunge of the Serbian president's plane on Friday was the fault of the co-pilot, who spilled coffee in the cockpit and accidentally activated an emergency switch, the Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate said in a report published on Tuesday.

Initially, Serbian officials said that the aircraft, carrying President Tomislav Nikolic and nine others to a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, had been sent into a plunge over the Adriatic Sea after one of its three engines failed at an altitude of about 33,000 feet.