[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: Passengers and pilot foil a hijacking

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
Passengers and pilot foil a hijacking
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1171653807.shtml


   Some good news about [1]pilots and French-speakers

     SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Canary Islands - A fast-thinking pilot with
     passengers in cahoots fooled a hijacker by braking hard upon
     landing, then accelerating to knock the man down. When he fell,
     flight attendants threw boiling water in his face, and about 10
     people pounced on him, Spanish officials said Friday.

     The Air Mauritania Boeing 737 carrying 71 passengers and a crew of
     eight was hijacked by a lone gunman brandishing two pistols
     Thursday evening shortly after it took off from Nouakchott, the
     capital of Mauritania, for Gran Canaria, one of Spain's Canary
     Islands, with a planned stopover in Nouadhibou in northern
     Mauritania.

     The hijacking alarmed Spanish officials because a trial of 29
     people accused in the Madrid terrorist bombings of 2004 had begun
     the same day in Madrid. But the man's motives were not terrorism;
     he wanted the plane to fly to France so he could request political
     asylum, said Mohamed Ould Mohamed Cheikh, Mauritania's top police
     official.

     "We were afraid. We thought it was people from al-Qaida or the
     Algerian GSPC who were going to cut our throats," said Aicha Mint
     Sidi, a 45-year-old woman who was on the plane. The GSPC is a
     Muslim extremist group....

     ...the hijacker ordered the pilot to fly to France, but the crew
     told him there was not enough fuel. And Morocco denied a request to
     land in the city of Djala in the Moroccan-controlled Western
     Sahara, so the pilot headed for Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, the
     original destination.

     Along the way, speaking to the hijacker, the pilot realized the man
     did not speak French. So he used the plane's public address system
     to warn the passengers in French of the ploy he was going to try:
     brake hard upon landing, then speed up abruptly. The idea was to
     catch the hijacker off balance, and have crew members and men
     sitting in the front rows of the plane jump him, the Spanish
     official said.

     The pilot also warned women and children to move to the back of the
     plane in preparation for the subterfuge, the official said.

     It worked. The man was standing in the middle aisle when the pilot
     carried out his maneuver, and he fell to the floor, dropping one of
     his two 7 mm pistols. Flight attendants then threw boiling water
     from a coffee machine in his face and at his chest, and some 10
     people jumped on the man and beat him, the Spanish official said.

     Around 20 people were slightly injured when the plane braked
     suddenly, the official said.

     The hijacker was arrested by Spanish police who boarded the plane
     after it landed at Gando airport, outside Las Palmas.

     Air Mauritania identified the heroic pilot as Ahmedou Mohamed
     Lemine, a 20-year-veteran of the company.

References

   1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070216/ap_on_re_eu/spain_hijacking