A Delta Air Lines Boeing 757 lifted off from Salt Lake City International Airport Tuesday morning filled with crew and passengers participating in a mock hijacking drill designed to test several agencies' abilities to respond to terrorism.

The plane took off about 7:30 a.m. piloted by a Delta Air Lines flight crew. It will be hijacked en route to Anchorage, Alaska, Special Agent Eric Gonzalez with the FBI's Anchorage field office, said. Agents in Alaska were given only limited details of the scenario, Gonzalez said. A C-9 U.S. Navy plane acting as a second passenger plane was scheduled to take off Tuesday morning from Whidbey Island, Wash., and fly to Vancouver International Airport.

The exercise will include no live fire and not disrupt any air traffic, but the outcome could include a variety of scenarios, said Maj. Douglas Martin of the Canadian Army working out of North American Defense Command (NORAD) headquarters in Colorado Springs.

"The actual outcome of what happens to that scenario in the air we don't know," Martin said. "We cannot discount what happened on Sept. 11."

"There's an element of surprise in these things because the exercise is aimed to test our response," Gonzalez said. "It'll be hijacked before it gets here. Once the plane touches down the FBI has primary jurisdiction in resolving this crisis."

The Canadian Royal Mounted Police will have similar jurisdiction over the plane headed for Vancouver, Martin said.

Salt Lake's FBI field office had a limited role in Tuesday's exercise, spokesman Kevin Eaton said. If a flight originating from Salt Lake City was hijacked, FBI agents here would interview airport workers, gather flight lists and go through video surveillance much like agents at Boston's Logan International Airport did after two flights originating from there were hijacked in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"We're interested in any kind of video of people boarding the plane, checking in at the gate, at the counter," Eaton said. "We'll interview the gate people, the lady behind the counter. It's not uncommon to search the parking lot for cars that they may have traveled in."

The FBI's participation in Tuesday's exercise is part of a weeklong training that also includes scenarios involving weapons of mass destruction and threats against the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The FBI regularly conducts similar exercises throughout the nation, including a series of training scenarios in Salt Lake City before the 2002 Winter Games.

This year's annual exercise, sponsored by the North American Aerospace Defense Command includes about 1,500 people from several agencies including the FBI, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transport Canada, Transportation Security Administration, Federal Aviation Administration and Vancouver Airport Authority. Officials said the exercise did not indicate an increased threat to domestic airspace over the United States or Canada.

"NORAD must train for the worst-case scenarios because we've seen the worst-case scenarios unfold before our eyes," Martin said. "What we have to remember is that there are people out there who have an Osama type of mentality and we have to be prepared for those type of people."