| Username |
Post |
| SP |
Posted
on 03-Oct-01 05:09 PM
By Satinder Bindra
CNN New Delhi Bureau
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- A Boeing 737 hijacked en route from Mumbai to New Delhi landed here Wednesday, sources with Indian Airlines told CNN.
All 54 passengers were reported safe.
The plane belonging to Alliance Air, a division of Indian Airlines, landed safely and was taken to a separate enclosure at the airport.
The pilot of the plane asked for two engineers to come on board, but it was not clear why.
There was no word on who was responsible for the hijacking.
All airports across India have been on alert for the past three or four days because a militant group fighting for independence on the Indian side of Kashmir reportedly issued warnings it would strike at airports.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 03-Oct-01 06:11 PM
This makes Indian Airlines (because the plane hijacked today belongs to a feeder airlines of Indian airlines) the most hijacked airlines upto date. Total :12 hijacks.
And they were blaming Nepal for lax of security when terrorists flew one of their
sick planes to Kandahar!And imposed air embargo for months.
Big country, small heart.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 03-Oct-01 07:14 PM
Well, now they say it was a hoax hijacking!
Cyber-savvy India!
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| Nhuchche |
Posted
on 03-Oct-01 11:01 PM
India was able to gain some limelight in international news thus....
Plane confusion
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
NEW DELHI: Despite the official clearing of air, there appear to be 52 versions of what happened to the late night Mumbai-Delhi flight.
Some passengers emerging from the Alliance Air plane maintained that the national security guard commandos apprehended two ``hijackers,'' and roughed them them up. Others said they never actual saw any hijacker in the entire drama. And one passenger said when he saw the commandos, he mistook them for hijackers.
When the flight landed at Delhi, the passengers on board -- there were 46 of them, plus six crew members -- were first told that there was a technical snag. That's why the aircraft doors could not be opened, they were told. The passengers were asked to remain in their seats.
Apparently, till this time, the pilots believed it was a real hijacking and had locked themselves in the cockpit. After the plane landed the commandos took their positions around it.
Later, it was announced from the cockpit that it was a ``mock'' exercise.
What seemed to add to the confusion was the spate of calls between the passengers with mobile phones and their relatives outside. One passenger phoned up The Times of India, telling the newspaper about the `hijacking.' Even reporters talked to the passengers in the aircraft.
As calls were exchanged during the early phase of the drama, one thing stood out: no passenger appeared to have actually seen the hijackers. And some passengers got to know that they had been hijacked -- and it was not a technical snag -- when their relatives called them with what they had learnt from television.
But when the drama was over, some passengers told reporters there had been `two hijackers.' But most passengers admitted they did not get to see any. The NSG commandos, brandishing their weapons in the aircraft, were however real. So was the crises management group that met a few kilometres away.
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