Regards, Ivan
Posted on 10/03/2002 7:41:54 AM PDT by MadIvan
A full-scale alert was launched today after the captain of a packed BA transatlantic passenger jet feared his plane was about to be hijacked.
Tornado fighter planes were scrambled from RAF bases in Britain and met the aircraft in midair to escort it to London.
Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch were informed and emergency crews, including specially trained hostage negotiators, were at the airport to meet the plane. As the aircraft landed it was ringed by armed police and escorted to a remote stand. Armed officers then boarded the plane but after questioning passengers and a thorough search decided there was no threat.
The captain of BA flight 288 from Baltimore to Heathrow signalled a full emergency around half an hour before landing when a man reported what he described as a suspicious conversation between two other passengers.
Orders flashed to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire where fighter jets are on 24-hour standby to intercept aircraft hijacked over Britain. Within minutes two Tornado F3 jets had been scrambled and intercepted the Boeing 767 carrying 193 passengers. The jets escorted the aircraft on its approach to Heathrow.
BA said the flight landed on time just before 9am. It was then escorted to a remote stand where specially trained Yard officers and police from the force's SO19 firearms unit went on board.
A source said: "One of the passengers overheard a conversation with two other male passengers and relayed what he heard to the cabin crew. Traffic control were alerted and a contingency plan put into operation."
A BA spokeswoman said the two passengers were interviewed by police when the plane landed. Officers were satisfied there had been no hijack threat and the men and other passengers were allowed to disembark.
The contingency operation lasted around 90 minutes before passengers were allowed off safely at Terminal Four.
Passengers were unaware of the fighter escort and did not know they had been at the centre of a security alert until after picking up their baggage.
One, Linda Longstaff, 50, said there had been a lot of confusion. Passengers on the plane had overhead a suspicious conversation between a man of Asian or Middle Eastern appearance and another man and informed air crew. Mrs Longstaff, who was stopping in London on her way to her home in Kenya, said: "He was sitting towards the back and the crew were speaking to him. When we landed they told us the airport was congested and we would have to stop the plane away from the terminal. We were quite shaken to say the least."
Regards, Ivan
Regards, Ivan
Regards, Ivan
The Arab world may not match our military capabilities, however their propaganda efforts are light years ahead of ours.
UK has more terrorists in London per sq foot than anywhere - we hold people wanted in Egypt, Jordan, France - recently released a guy wanted in US for 9/11 links etc., etc.,
US shows remarkable and naive belief in Tony Blair and his cronies - witness cozying up to Slick Willy yesterday at Labour Party Conference
We are still appeasing IRA, we know perps of Omagh bomb - do nothing. IRA and UDA control Drugs and prostitution, protection rackets in NI - do nothing. IRA terrorists caught in Columbia, we put no pressure on G Adams and his associated killers.
Please provide an answer - were the Tornados going to shoot down a civil airliner full of citizens?
What was it Lear said?
"Full of sound and fury signifying nothing"
That's our Blessed Tony.
Uh, that's from Macbeth, the soliloquy sometimes known as "Tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow"
This should be the full text of the brief soliloquy--no flames please as I'm working from highschool memory here! I know the punctuation is not as the Bard had written, but it'll serve for now, as I cannot find my Complete Works of the Bard.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out out brief candle, life’s but a shadow, a mere player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. T’is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Shades of the "Alligator Alley Three"?
II Henry IV, II:1
I wondered that too.
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