Curses! Foiled Again!

Plane hijacking foiled by fast-thinking pilot

A fast-thinking pilot fooled a gunman who had hijacked a plane flying from Africa to the Canary Islands. The pilot braked hard on landing then quickly accelerated to knock the man down so travellers could pounce on him, Spanish officials said today.

A little more detail here:

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 hijackers name? Mohamed Abderraman. But there's no terror here. No siree.

"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."

Oh, and pay no attention to the fact that the hijacking occurred just days after al Qaeda called for attacks on Mauritania's rulers.

"In an audio message quoted by Arab media this week, al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri said Muslims should attack Mauritania's leaders for recognising Israel. "I call especially on our people in Mauritania ... to take a sincere jihadi stand against treacherous rulers who recognised Israel and betrayed the Islamic nation," Zawahri said.

Hey, old dirty tramp face al-Zawahiri. Give it up. That hijacking thing isn't ever going to work again, pal.