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Showing posts with label hijack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hijack. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Thursday, April 17, 2025
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Holy Hijacker
Ireland 1999 | 53:21 minutes
Director: Colum Stapleton
Producer: Martina Durac
Production Company:Glencairn Films
On 2nd May, 1981 fifty-five year old ex-Trappist monk Laurence James Downey boarded Aer Lingus flight EI 164 from Dublin to London. Five minutes out of Heathrow Downey went to the toilet, doused himself in petrol before going to the cockpit with a cigarette lighter in hand. He hijacked the plane which landed at Le Touquet in Normandy and Downey declared his demand that the Pope make public the Third Secret of Fatima.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Indian airports on alert over hijack threat
Government increases security at airports and orders use of sky marshals amid warnings of Islamist terrorist plot to hijack plane
Matthew Weaver and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 January 2010 09.20 GMT
An Air India jet comes into land at Mumbai airport. India's airports are on high alert after intelligence reports suggested terrorists may seize a plane. Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images
Airports in India were put on high alert today after intelligence reports of a terrorist plot to hijack a plane.
The Indian government also directed airlines to deploy sky marshals on a number of routes between countries in south Asia.
Terrorist groups with links to al-Qaida or Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based group behind the Mumbai attack in 2008, were planning to seize a plane operating in the region, according to intelligence reports cited by the Press Trust of India.
The warning comes in the run up to next Tuesday's annual republic day in India, when there are often security scares.
Routes to India from countries in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation are thought to be especially vulnerable. They are Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Sky marshals have been ordered on board planes flying on routes between India and these countries. India has also advised these seven countries to step up security at their airports.
Despite volatility in the region, India has been spared a major terrorist attack since the Mumbai incident, when 10 militants attacked the city for three days in November 2008, killing 166 people.
Aviation spokeswoman Moushumi Chakravarty said that the airports were placed on alert yesterday after the government received the warnings.
A report in The Indian Express newspaper, which Chakravarty confirmed, said intelligence officials had uncovered a plot by militants to hijack an Air India or Indian Airlines flight destined for a South Asian country.
UK Bansal, from India's home ministry, told Reuters: "We have alerted our civil aviation security people against a possible attempt to hijack an Indian airlines flight."
He added: "This would obviously be from terrorist groups who are arraigned against Indian interests." He did not specify which group.
The Indian media said the hijack threat was uncovered during the interrogation of Amjad Khwaja, a militant leader belonging to Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, an extremist group involved in numerous terror attacks in India.
Khwaja was arrested in the southern Indian city of Chennai last week and was being questioned by Indian police.
The terror alert came just days after the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, warned that a syndicate of terror groups affiliated with al-Qaida was trying to foment a new war between India and Pakistan.
Gates praised India for its restraint after the Mumbai attacks, but expressed concern that the government would have a hard time reacting so cautiously if it were hit again.
In December 1999, Islamic militants hijacked an Air India flight from Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. The hijacking ended when New Delhi released four Islamic militants in exchange for 167 passengers and crew.
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Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/22/indian-airports-alert-hijack-threat
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Matthew Weaver and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 January 2010 09.20 GMT
An Air India jet comes into land at Mumbai airport. India's airports are on high alert after intelligence reports suggested terrorists may seize a plane. Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images
Airports in India were put on high alert today after intelligence reports of a terrorist plot to hijack a plane.
The Indian government also directed airlines to deploy sky marshals on a number of routes between countries in south Asia.
Terrorist groups with links to al-Qaida or Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based group behind the Mumbai attack in 2008, were planning to seize a plane operating in the region, according to intelligence reports cited by the Press Trust of India.
The warning comes in the run up to next Tuesday's annual republic day in India, when there are often security scares.
Routes to India from countries in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation are thought to be especially vulnerable. They are Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Sky marshals have been ordered on board planes flying on routes between India and these countries. India has also advised these seven countries to step up security at their airports.
Despite volatility in the region, India has been spared a major terrorist attack since the Mumbai incident, when 10 militants attacked the city for three days in November 2008, killing 166 people.
Aviation spokeswoman Moushumi Chakravarty said that the airports were placed on alert yesterday after the government received the warnings.
A report in The Indian Express newspaper, which Chakravarty confirmed, said intelligence officials had uncovered a plot by militants to hijack an Air India or Indian Airlines flight destined for a South Asian country.
UK Bansal, from India's home ministry, told Reuters: "We have alerted our civil aviation security people against a possible attempt to hijack an Indian airlines flight."
He added: "This would obviously be from terrorist groups who are arraigned against Indian interests." He did not specify which group.
The Indian media said the hijack threat was uncovered during the interrogation of Amjad Khwaja, a militant leader belonging to Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, an extremist group involved in numerous terror attacks in India.
Khwaja was arrested in the southern Indian city of Chennai last week and was being questioned by Indian police.
The terror alert came just days after the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, warned that a syndicate of terror groups affiliated with al-Qaida was trying to foment a new war between India and Pakistan.
Gates praised India for its restraint after the Mumbai attacks, but expressed concern that the government would have a hard time reacting so cautiously if it were hit again.
In December 1999, Islamic militants hijacked an Air India flight from Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. The hijacking ended when New Delhi released four Islamic militants in exchange for 167 passengers and crew.
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Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/22/indian-airports-alert-hijack-threat
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Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Religious fanatic briefly hijacks Mexican plane
Mexican Federal Police present to the media Jose Mar Flores Pereira of Bolivia, the man accused of hijacking an AeroMexico plane in Mexico City, September 9, 2009.
REUTERS/Eliana Aponte
By Anahi Rama and Jason Lange
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Bolivian-born man clutching a Bible and claiming a divine mission hijacked a plane in Mexico with more than 100 people aboard on Wednesday, but the incident ended quickly and without bloodshed.
Jose Flores, who told police he was a Protestant minister, seized the AeroMexico Boeing 737 after take off from the Caribbean resort of Cancun demanding to speak to Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Flores, 44, smuggled a false bomb on board and threatened to blow up the aircraft if he could not warn the president of what he said was an impending earthquake, police said.
"He said he is a minister and that it was a divine revelation that made him carry out this action," Security Minister Genaro Garcia told reporters.
The plane landed safely in Mexico City, its original destination, and police stormed the aircraft after the passengers had been allowed off, but not the crew.
Police apparently detained Flores without a struggle and a few minutes later led him away in handcuffs, ending Mexico's first hijack drama in years, Transport Minister Juan Molinar told reporters that all 104 passengers and crew of 8 were safely off the aircraft. "There was no bomb," he said.
Nine men were initially detained, but Security Minister Garcia said eight were ordinary passengers caught up in the drama. He said Flores, wearing a shirt and jeans, was the only hijacker.
Smiling and chewing gum, the hijacker was presented at a news conference but refused to answer journalists' questions.
Earlier, security forces raced to Mexico City airport and helicopters circled above the airport as the plane landed and taxied to a part of the airport reserved for emergencies.
CALM EXIT
Some passengers said they were not aware of the hijack during the flight, although one man noticed Flores was carrying a Bible.
"We really didn't know what was going on," passenger Adriana Romero told Mexican television. "We realized it was a hijack when we saw the police trucks."
Mexico has no major radical political groups who espouse violence, although Calderon is embroiled in a bitter war with drug cartels, whose turf wars have killed more than 13,000 people since he took power in late 2006 and set the army on them.
Direct attacks by drug gangs on the public or attempts to force talks with the government are very rare. Continued...
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5885K420090909?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
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