A Russian policeman has been jailed for phoning an airport with a bomb warning to help acquaintances of his boss make their flight, the Reuters news agency reports quoting an article in the Friday issue of Russian daily Kommersant.

A senior police officer, who was seeing off two businessmen in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg in February last year, told his subordinate to fix the problem when they failed to board the plane on time.

The assistant phoned the airport and said he had received a message about explosives and weapons on board the plane. The aircraft with 40 passengers on board turned around in mid-air to return to Yekaterinburg.

The police officer and his subordinate were sentenced to 21 months in prison each, the paper reported.

Witnesses cited by Kommersant said the businessmen had been drinking in the airport.