Capt. Panfilo Villaruel, former head of the Air Transportation Office, took over the Manila Control Tower at around 11PM local time. Initial reports said there were 12 armed assailants but this turned out to be false. At around 3am local, while he was giving out an interview with a local station via cellphone, the airport SWAT team barged into the tower and a firefight ensued. The poor guy was heard trying to surrender but maybe due to the confusion in such a tight space, he was shot together with another armed companion.
Government reports indicated that this was an isolated case and might have been caused by the frustration of one man, dubbing the ex-ATO chief as "incoherent" in his demands and rattling off vague issues on graft and corruption.
Even if this was just an isolated case, this just shows to the world that so-called secured areas can be breached so easily here in the Philippines. Even terrorists can just walk out of so-called maximum security prisons, in the middle of the police headquarters at that!
This one is for Ripley's, tough still unconfirmed. When the late Capt. Villaruel took over the Manila Control Tower, there was a PAL flight coming in and was diverted to Cebu. The First Officer on that flight was his son. I just can't imagine the pain his son must be going through right now. Not that I'm condoning what he did, but still, I give my condolences.