Feb 18, 2007
FOILED, ALL BECAUSE...Hijacker didn't know French
Pilot used the language to tell passengers to prepare for
fightback
SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, CANARY ISLANDS (SPAIN) - PASSENGERS on a
hijacked jet described their terror before their pilot used the
gunman's inability to understand French to hatch a plot to save
them.
'We were afraid. We thought it was people from Al-Qaeda or the
Algerian GSPC who were going to cut our throats,' said passenger
Aicha Mint Sidi, 45. The GSPC is a Muslim extremist group.
The ordeal began when a man armed with two 7mm pistols burst into
the cockpit shortly after the Air Mauritania Boeing 737, carrying
71 passengers and a crew of eight, took off from the Mauritanian
capital of Nouakchott on Thursday
The plane was heading for Gran Canaria in Spain's Canary Islands,
but the hijacker wanted to fly to France so he could request
political asylum, said Mauritania's top police official Mohamed
Ould Mohamed Cheikh.
After the crew told the gunman there was not enough fuel to reach
France, veteran pilot Captain Ahmedou Mohamed Lemine resumed his
course for his original destination.
When he realised the hijacker did not understand French, he decided
to use that as a weapon against him to organise a fightback by
passengers.
Using the plane's public address system, he told the passengers in
French what he was going to attempt: First, he would slam on the
brakes upon landing, then accelerate abruptly in the hope of
throwing the hijacker off balance.
He also asked crew members and men sitting in the front rows of the
plane to jump on the man, a Spanish official said, while warning
women and children to take refuge in the back rows.
It was a desperate plan but it worked to perfection.
As the plane touched down on Gran Canaria, the hijacker -
identified by the Spanish official as 32-year-old Mauritanian
Mohamed Abderraman - was standing in the middle aisle.
The deliberately rough landing threw him to the floor, where he
dropped one of his pistols.
Flight attendants then threw boiling water on the man's face and
chest, and about 10 people jumped and beat him into submission, the
Spanish official said.
Around 20 people were slightly injured when the plane braked
suddenly, the Spanish official said, and the hijacker was arrested
by Spanish police.
Air Mauritania spokesman Ahmedou Ahmedou said of Captain Ahmedou
Mohamed: 'The man deserves a medal.'
AP
