'Hijack' drama: Lessons from the mid-air scare

New Delhi: Forty-year old Jeetender Mohala may have never thought of hijacking a plane.
But his alleged unruly behaviour on board resulted in a six-hour anti-hijack drill and his eventual detention.
According to sources in the police, this is how the whole incident played out on Sunday.
Upon entering the aircaft, Jeetender got into a heated argument with an air hostess over seating arrangement. Police says that he threatened the air hostess by saying things like, "I will cut my vein, don't you know, I am a sky marshall? I was involved in the Kandahar hijacking,” he said.He then allegedly threatened to hijack the plane if the crew didn't listen to him. At this point, the crew informed the pilot who in turn initiated the anti-hijack security drill.
President of Indigo (Delhi), Aditya Ghose Ghose told CNN-IBN the crew did whatever it could in a potential hijack situation. The issue was – his behaviour was out of ordinary and unruly inside the aircraft. Several things happened the details of which I am not in position to divulge since probe is on. But what happened inside the aircraft led cockpit crew to believe that safety of passengers and aircraft may be under threat. They carried out procedure they are trained in, the Captain, when closer to Delhi asked for priority landing from ATC which we got. Details won’t be right to divulge since it's a serious security threat,” he said.
Anti-hijack expert Col Mahendra P Chaudhary said India can be hijack-ready if all the measures are in place. “We need to take into account a terrorists' psychology. They will, after hijacking, take the aircarft to a larger airport for publicity. Smaller airport won’t get publicity. Even if they do, it is only the anti-hijack drill will come into affect. That's when NSG will come into action. But even before that we will have to collect intelligence regarding hijackers inside. This can be done when someone transmits from inside the aircraft. There has to be a system whereby NSG needs to drop some bugs inside aircarft which will let them know of the details”.
02/02/09 CNN-IBN

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Categories: Airports Feb 2009, Indigo Airlines Feb 2009, Safety Feb 2009