Posted on 06/21/2007 9:23:41 AM PDT by drzz
BBC - Tuesday, 23 January, 2001, 12:37 GMT US diplomat safe after Yemen hijack
The US ambassador to Yemen was among 91 passengers unharmed after a hijacker on an internal flight from the capital San'a to Taiz was overpowered. The hijacker, who said he was a supporter of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, was held by the flight crew after the plane was diverted to Djibouti.
We persuaded him with difficulty to land in Djibouti to refuel...once there, I managed to let most of the passengers disembark
Amer Anis, pilot Most of the passengers, including US envoy Barbara Bodine, disembarked safely through the emergency exit.
The hijacker had demanded that the aircraft be flown to Baghdad, and had threatened to blow up the plane with a suitcase packed with explosives.
Pilot Amer Anis, said: "We persuaded him with difficulty to land in Djibouti to refuel. Once there, I managed to let most of the passengers disembark."
Struggle
The hijacker, sitting in the first class section, commandeered the plane about 10 minutes into the flight. The aircraft then circled for about an hour before heading to Djibouti.
The hijacker claimed allegiance to Saddam Hussein
According to an airport official, the crew then overpowered the man, who was armed with a pistol.
Two shots were fired during a struggle, which left the flight engineer with an injured hand.
The passengers also included the US military and political attaches at the Sana'a embassy, and a protocol official from the office of Yemeni President Abdullah Saleh.
The officials were travelling to Taiz to join US Army General Tommy Franks, who was due to hold talks with President Saleh on military co-operation and the ongoing investigation into the bombing of a US destroyer in Yemen last year.
Thank God, we finally took him down.
“The hijacker, sitting in the first class section, commandeered the plane about 10 minutes into the flight. “
“According to an airport official, the crew then overpowered the man, who was armed with a pistol.”
Sounds like 9/11, doesn’t it ?
Sounds like they were tweaking it a few months prior to 9/11.
A perfect name for a web site discussing "incidents" that no one even hears about.
How about incidents that are never reported at all? Not even once!
This is my favorite, from Never seen anywhere…
From Terror in the Skies by Annie Jacobsen, pg. 52:
… several disturbing accounts from pilots and flight crew members who had witnessed suspicious activity on other flights and reported it to superiors.
Among these accounts was one particularly disturbing report from an Air Marshall:
“A Middle Eastern passenger had been in an aircraft bathroom far too long, and the air marshall on board became suspicious. He forced his way inside the bathroom and discovered that the passenger had removed the bathroom mirror and was attempting to break through the wall and into the cockpit.”
Am I the only one who managed to miss that frightening report (until I read that book)?
I didn’t hear anything on this incident either.
That’s a pretty big memory hole, deliberatly dug by the media.
Ping.
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