Pilot Foiled Hijacker
Passengers of a Yemeni hijacked plane won their freedom Tuesday thanks to the quick thinking of their pilot who realized their abductor spoke little English.
The man claiming to be a supporter of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was also unaware that the Yemen Airways flight that he commandeered was carrying U.S. Ambassador to Sanaa Barbara Bodine and four of her aides.
Pilot Amer Anis began giving the co-pilot and flight engineer instructions in English on looking after the passengers when he realized the hijacker, who was in the cockpit, did not understand what was being said.
Once he realized this, the pilot told his crew in English that as soon as they landed at Djibouti airport they should open the emergency doors and evacuate the 91 passengers.
When the plane landed, this correspondent, who was on the flight from Yemen's capital Sanaa to the southern city of Taiz, heard the captain order the crew: "Start with the ambassador and her team, quickly, quickly."
Passengers moved quickly to the rear of the Boeing 727 and jumped, one by one, out of the plane onto emergency chutes.
Anis said later that the hijacker, a Yemeni in his 40s, started screaming when he saw the empty plane, waving a miniature pistol that looked like a long pen.
"He started shouting and threatening me, 'You will be the first to die,' " Anis said.
One crew member fired foam from a fire extinguisher into the hijacker's face in an attempt to blind him. Another tried to wrestle him down.
"The hijacker fired one bullet, slightly injuring a flight engineer in his left arm," Anis added.
An airport official said two shots were fired, but all passengers and crew were safe and the hijacker arrested.
Bodine and her team appeared calm throughout the ordeal. They declined to make any comment during the hijacking or after it ended.
The State Department will review security procedures for the U.S. ambassador in Yemen following the attempted hijacking.
"We'll certainly look at the security situation and try to understand what implications it might have for how we protect our ambassador," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
"I'm sure people will make changes if they feel they are necessary."
They had been due to join Army Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, who was on his second visit to Yemen since the Oct. 12 bombing of the USS Cole destroyer which killed 17 U.S. sailors in Aden harbor.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh met Franks in Taiz without the U.S. diplomats and instead sent a presidential jet that took them back to Sanaa.
The hijacking started less than 10 minutes into the flight and before the seat belt light was switched off. The hijacker stood up and moved from economy to the first class section of the plane where the U.S. diplomats and two senior Yemeni officials sat.
The man, wearing a dark gray jacket, placed a small handbag on an empty chair lose to the cockpit. When a hostess tried to stop him, he pushed her aside.
"I am hijacking this plane. Nobody touches this bag. It is full of explosives," he shouted before storming into the cockpit.
"I am a follower of Saddam Hussein and I want to fly to Baghdad," the hijacker added in Arabic.