Three knife-carrying passengers intercepted at Bombay airport

Mon, 9 Sep 2002 20:54 AEST | abcnews.com

[ET(end tyranny)]

Most likely an embassy or military installation.

[mikhailovich]

I find it odd that the hijackers might have Saudi connections.

It would be a shame to think one of our best allies might have a bad apple (or two.)

[ET(end tyranny)]

There was a thread about Kuwait joining for an attack on Iraq. Good place for staging. Maybe a hit on the American embassy in Kuwait to try and make the Kuwatis change their minds??

[freeperfromnj]

They got on the planes with their knives didn't they?

It was no small boxcutter either -- it was a seven inch knife.

Passengers slept through Air Seychelles hijack drama

AFP [ MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 09, 2002 2:22:00 PM ]

COLOMBO: Most passengers on board an Air Seychelles flight from Mumbai to the Maldives only realised they had escaped a mid-air drama when the plane landed safely.

Sathya Rao, a hotel employee in the Maldives and a passenger on board, said that many people heard about the knife-wielding passenger who tried to hijack the flight only after he had been overpowered.

Rao thought he heard loud voices shortly before the aircraft arrived at the Maldivian international airport on Hululle island, but did not take much notice until the pilot made a shock announcement.

"The captain announced that there was a small incident aboard the aircraft. He said a passenger tried to get to the flight deck after assaulting crew members.

"The captain said fellow passengers and the rest of the crew overpowered the man and the situation was under control," Rao said.

Maldivian officials said one crew member was slightly injured while trying to subdue the would-be hijacker, who was carrying an Indian passport.

"Most of the passengers did not know what had happened until the captain broke the news. By the time we realised that we escaped a hijacking, the plane landed and a lot of security people were there to receive us," he said.

He said the luggage of all the passengers was minutely checked as the would-be hijacker said he had planted a bomb onboard the Boeing 737 aircraft.

Maldivian civil aviation officials said they had thoroughly searched the aircraft and found no explosives.

[ET(end tyranny)]

That article makes is look like only one person was involved, not three.

Hard to imagine people sleeping through what must have been noisy!

[freeperfromnj]

Three hours after this attempted hijack incident they caught three others in a separate incident. The other three landed in Bombay after a flight from Trivandrum and were supposed to take another flight from there to Saudi Arabia. This sounds like another coordinated mult-target attempt.

[ET(end tyranny)]

Oh ok. Thanks for clearing that up. Still would be interesting to find out where they were trying to divert the plane to. Then again, maybe they won't say even if they find out. Perhaps there are other targets similar to this intended one, and if the authorities find out this one they can warn similar ones of the possibility.

[swarthyguy]

Targets -- any skyscraper in Bombay. Yes, they are there.

Or a US aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean; though that would be a complex task finding it.

The Taj would be too far; about 90 minutes to 2 hours by air.

So i vote for a strike on India's financial and business and media capital. Similar to the position Manhattan has in US society.

[ellery]

Taj Mahal, or the Indian version of the capital building?

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Looks like something is up...

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

don't forget the ^TM after Peace^TM.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

That is the article from the guy who tried to take over on an earlier flight today. So far there have been two separate flights with people who had knives...

[NH Liberty]

Re your #3...it shows a veddy, veddy inteddesting talent!

[swarthyguy]

Actually a few months ago, jihadis threatened to blow up the Taj.

Built by a muslim in memory of his love, it holds no attraction to jihadis as it treasures the memory of his wife.

India beefed up air and ground security patrols because of the threat.

[Shermy]

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_62072,0005.htm

Indian arrested for attempting to hijack plane
Press Trust of India
Colombo, September 09


An Indian armed with a knife tried to hijack in mid-air an Air Seychelles Boeing 737 which had taken off from Mumbai with 72 people on board but was overpowered by alert cabin crew and arrested soon after it landed at Male airport on a scheduled halt on Monday morning.


An Indian passport holder with the intention of diverting the aircraft to another destination tried to enter the cockpit brandishing a knife but was stopped by a flight engineer, who was injured in the scuffle, a Maldivian civil aviation ministry official said.


No passenger was injured during the incident which took place two days before the first anniversary of the September 11 air strikes in the US.


Without disclosing the identity of the hijacker, the official said he had been arrested and being questioned.


Maldivian authorities were also questioning a passenger who they suspect was a link to the man arrested.


Officials at Mumbai airport gave the name of the arrested person as Hiraji Vaswani and said he was carrying a six to seven inches long knife and had rushed towards the cockpit door before being overpowered by three airhostesses and two stewards.

____________

Nothing in this story tells me he wasn't going to crash it - "Other destination" is exactly the ruse the 9/11 hijackers told the passengers to make them think they were being hijacked in the usual sense.
Knives won't do it anymore, any where in the world.

[swarthyguy]

Big security Snafu, though.

The name is also more of a hindu name....But forged passports aren't anything new to this crowd.

[A_perfect_lady]

There once was a pieceful religion
that set on a course of collision
with a nation too free
to bend at the knee
to the fans of a sicko stool pigeon.

[RoseyT]

Can someone link me to source of the second story about the 3 with knives, please? I can't seem to find it on abcnews.com.

Thanks