Passengers overcome hijacker on Turkish Airlines flight

by LotusFlower | October 15, 2008 at 08:03 am

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Passengers overpowered a man who attempted to hijack a Turkish plane.

He couldn't write very well and was very drunk. The Russian officials when hearing this description were suprised that he was not British.

The would be hijacker, who had reportedly consumed a considerable quantity of alcohol, passed a barely legible note to an air hostess threatening to blow up the plane.

"I have bomb," he wrote in the message. "If you don't take me in I will blow up." The man was then overpowered as he attempted to force his way into the cockpit.

This unfolded as the Airbus A-320, en route from the Turkish resort of Anatalya to St Petersburg, flew over Belarus. There were 167 passengers on board, most of them Russian tourists returning from a holiday on the Turkish Riviera.

Police arrested the man shortly after the aircraft landed at St Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport. Details on his identity were scant, although officials confirmed that he had not been carrying explosives.

"Surprisingly this hooligan was not British," said an official at Pulkovo. "I understand he was from Uzbekistan where they also like to drink but cannot control themselves so well as Russians."