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Qatar Airways plane hijacked |
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September 16, 2000
AMMAN, SEPT 15 (AP) - A man with a knife hijacked a Qatar Airways plane en route Thursday from the Gulf nation to Jordan with 144 people aboard and ordered it flown to Saudi Arabia, where the hijacker surrendered. Ten hours after their ordeal began, the passengers arrived at Amman's Queen Alia International Airport at 12:07 a.m. (2107 GMT) Friday. Capt. Jihad Irsheid, director general of the Jordanian Civil Aviation Authority, said all aboard were in good condition. Jordanian officials and several passengers aboard Flight QR 404 said the hijacker was an Iraqi armed with a knife. It wasn't clear why the hijacker had insisted on going to Saudi Arabia. Jordanian Transport Minister Mohammad Kaladeh said the hijacker "had political motives." He would not elaborate, but other government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested the hijacker was an Iraqi dissident concerned that Jordanian officials would send him home. Abdullah al-Manae, public relations manager for Qatar Airways, said 133 passengers and 11 crew members were aboard the Airbus 300, which was hijacked during a 2 1/2-hour flight from Qatar's capital, Doha, to Amman. The passengers included Britons, Jordanians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Indians and Malaysians, according to Jordanian airport officials. A complete breakdown was not available. At the airport arrival lounge in Amman, passengers had emotional reunions with relatives and friends. Some cried; others laughed, hugged or handed out flowers. Saber Tarawneh, a Jordanian passenger who sat next to the hijacker in the economy cabin, described him as a short, thin man in his early 30s who "looked uncomfortable and worried" from the time the plane took off. "He was simply agitated," Tarawneh said. "He was nervously shaking his legs while sitting down and often went to the toilet in the first half-hour after we left Doha." "I thought it was his first time on a plane and he was afraid," he said. "I tried to speak to him to comfort him, but he refused to talk back with me." Haifa Abu Ghazaleh, also a Jordanian passenger, said she saw the hijacker go into the toilet in his head-to-toe white Arab gown and come out in dark pants and a shirt. "I then saw him heading toward the cockpit with something in his hand," she said. Later, she said, "we heard the pilot announcing that there was a passenger who was insisting on going to Saudi Arabia." She and others aboard said they heard the hijacker threaten the pilot in an Iraqi accent. She said the plane changed course and headed to Hael, which is 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Earlier, Jordanian passenger Farouk al-Jizawi, said in Saudi Arabia that "all the passengers were calm, despite the fact that the hijacker was carrying a large knife and claiming that he had a grenade and that he was going to blow up the plane if his demand to land in Hael was not met." Irsheid, the Civil Aviation chief, said the plane had "used a special code signaling to Jordan's airport control it was hijacked." "In turn, we immediately notified Saudi authorities that there was a hijacked plane heading their way," Irsheid said. The hijacker, he said, was an Iraqi armed with a "big knife." The plane was surrounded by Saudi authorities on landing in Hael, Saudi officials said on customary condition of anonymity. Al-Jizawi said a senior Saudi officer boarded the plane and the hijacker disembarked with him shortly afterward. An ambulance was at the Hael airport and one passenger received medical treatment, according to Saudi officials. Irsheid said an elderly passenger had a heart attack during the hijacking, but the head of Qatar Airways' office in Amman, Waiel Khalidi, said the man had only felt sick and dizzy because his blood pressure had shot up. Khalidi said the passenger traveled on to Amman with the others. Ghassan Salem, Qatar Airways' operations manager, said the hijacker would be taken to Qatar for questioning and any legal action. Qatar Airways said the crew had been flown back to Doha, the capital of Qatar, to be debriefed about the hijacking. Thursday's hijacking was the first of a Qatar Airways aircraft since the carrier was formed in 1994. |