Pilot and Passengers Thwart Hijacking

Air Mauritania Boeing 737 carrying 71 passengers and a crew of eight was hijacked 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.

Mohamed Abderraman, a 32-year-old Mauritanian who had two guns, ordered the pilot to fly to France, but the crew told him there was not enough fuel.

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.

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. (NYT)

Not terrorism??? Oh please. How naive do they think we are? As The Amboy Times says:

... a Muslim hijacks a plane on the same day of the trial of the Madrid bombers, but it's not terrorism? What are the odds that our keystone al-Qaeda is going to get political asylum by hijacking a plane? Isn't it more likely that he was going to demand something in exchange for the plane and it's passengers? Like releasing the Madrid bombers maybe?

I agree completely. This is most certainly an act of terrorism. The brave pilot and crew deserve medals. I also applaud what the passengers did. In the current climate where terrorism is everywhere, individual responsibility is the first line of defense. These passengers and pilot didn't sit back and wait for someone on the ground to make a decision of what to do. The pilot is the captain of the ship, he made the hard decision and he was right in doing so. 'Air Mauritania identified the heroic pilot as Ahmedou Mohamed Lemine, a 20-year-veteran of the company.'

I salute you Ahmedou Hohamed Lemine!

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Comments

[Thomas Hamilton]

"a Frenchman showing courage"

You got to admit that since Napoleon, it's been kinda downhill for them.

[Rastaman]

That pilot has a French muslim name. Yet he both showed courage and stopped a hijacking. Does anyone besides me see anything strange in a Frenchman showing courage and a muslim stopping a terrorist?

Rastaman

[Thomas Hamilton]

Why! That guy ought to sue someone for throwing boiling water on him. How thoughtless of those innocent people.