A hijacked passenger jet was still on the ground in the north Caucasus city of Makhachkala on Wednesday night, 24 hours after being seized by two armed Azeri men demanding a ransom of $2 million and a safe passage to Iran, Interior Ministry and counterintelligence service officials said.


Konstantin Beryozkin, a spokesman for the Federal Counterintelligence Service, said a medium-haul Yak-40 belonging to the Rostovsky air company was hijacked by two men armed with knives, a grenade and a home-made bomb, at 10.17 P.M. Tuesday shortly after it took off from Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, en route for Rostov-on-Don.


"The plane changed its route and came back to the airport at 10.35 P.M.," Beryozkin said. "The pilot informed the authorities of the hijackers' demands to give them $2 million and enough fuel to go to Tabriz. Otherwise, they threatened to kill all the passengers."


There were a total of 27 passengers and crew aboard the plane, Beryozkin said.


He said Sergei Stepashin, director of the Federal Counterintelligence Service, had ordered the launch of a joint operation with police and members of the special Alpha anti-terrorist unit, who stood by at the airport while the authorities negotiated with the hijackers.


On Wednesday, the hijackers began releasing their hostages, until by early evening only three crew members were still held. Interfax reported that the authorities had handed over $2.3 million to the hijackers in return, but the news agency later revised the figure to $800,000. The authorities also refueled the plane.


One of the hijackers later left the plane, apparently after an argument with his partner, according to Alexei Petrenko, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. He said the hijacker, whom he declined to identify, was immediately detained by police. Earlier Petrenko had given the names of the two men as Eltun Mekhti-Zade, 22, and Asif Kuliev, 30, both Azeris.


However, Itar-Tass said it was unclear whether there were two hijackers or only one, saying the man who left the plane could have been a passenger mistakenly taken for an accomplice.


The commercial radio station Ekho Moskvy later reported that two more hostages had been released, leaving only the captain and one hijacker on board. It also said that the lone hijacker was demanding a further $2 million. But there was no official confirmation of the report.


An official for the Foreign Ministry, who refused to be named, said by phone that the ministry had begun talks with Iran to get their permission for the plane to land if necessary.


According to Itar-Tass, Sergei Tretyakov, the Russian ambassador to Iran, had received official permission from the Iranian authorities to allow the plane to land, but Azerbaijan had refused to allow it to refuel on its way.


Itar-Tass reported Wednesday that an anti-terrorist unit was ready to storm the plane, but as night fell all remained quiet around the plane, parked at a distant corner of the runway.