Kicking Some Hijacker Ass

The Office Tan crew wishes that we had come up with such an awesome trick. We provide expert analysis where appropriate in the excerpted article below.

Bumpy landing foils plane hijacker
By Juan Manuel Pardellas, Associated Press Writer
Published: 17 February 2007
EXCERPTS

A quick-thinking pilot thwarted a gun-toting hijacker on a flight from Africa to Spain's Canary Islands by discreetly warning passengers he would brake hard upon landing, then speed up just as abruptly to knock the man off balance - and telling them to be ready to pounce, Spanish officials said yesterday.

The trick worked to perfection, with travelers and crew waiting until the hijacker was on the floor to douse him in the face and chest with boiling water from a coffee machine and beat him into submission.

The lone gunman brandishing two pistols hijacked the Air Mauritania Boeing 737, carrying 71 passengers and a crew of eight, shortly after it took off from the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott for Gran Canaria, one of Spain's Canary Islands, with a stopover planned in Nouadhibou in northern Mauritania.

He wanted to divert the plane to France so that he could request political asylum, said Mohamed Ould Mohamed Cheikh, Mauritania's top police official.

Speaking to the gunman during the hijacking, the pilot realized the man did not understand French. So he used the plane's public address system to warn the passengers in French of the ploy he was going to try: slam on the brakes upon landing, then accelerate 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 on him, the Spanish official said. (Office Tan would've wanted to be right there in the front row)

It worked. As the plane landed on Gran Canaria, 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 7mm pistols. Flight attendants then threw boiling water in his face and at his chest (THAT ROCKS!! The flight attendants rushed out with their coffee pot weapons!), and some 10 people jumped on the man and beat him, the Spanish official said.

"We were afraid. We thought it was people from al-Qaida or the Algerian GSPC who were going to cut our throats," said Aicha Mint Sidi, a 45-year-old woman who was on the plane. The GSPC is a Muslim extremist group. (Nah, he was just some idiot who wanted a free ride to France)

The hijacker was arrested by Spanish police who boarded the plane after it landed at Gando airport, outside Las Palmas. (How embarassing for him. He was probably all disheveled from his little squabble with all the people in the front row.)