SMS hijack hoax no joke
By Luke McIlveen
December 19, 2004
A MAN on board a flight from Sydney Airport caused a major international security alert when he text messaged his wife overseas to tell her his plane had been hijacked by Islamic terrorists.
Italian tourist Antonio Casale, 35, sent SMS messages as a joke after taking off on Lauda Austrian Airlines flight OS2 at 6.30pm last Sunday.
The Sunday Telegraph understands Casale, who was travelling to Vienna via Kuala Lumpur, sent the messages during a re-fuelling stop in the Malaysian capital.
He claimed terrorists were in control of the plane and were taking the passengers to an unknown destination.
Casale's distressed wife alerted police within minutes of receiving the flurry of messages at home in Milan.
Australian Federal Police were then informed a group of terrorists had possibly boarded the flight in Sydney and were asked by Italian authorities to carry out background checks on passengers.
The Italian Embassy in Canberra was drawn into the full-scale operation and provided details of Casale's movements in Australia.
Anti-terror agents in Kuala Lumpur were also tipped off about the possibility of another September 11-style terror attack. They were able to raise the pilot and connect him to counter-terror negotiators.
Casale's message was confirmed as a hoax when negotiators contacted the pilot mid-flight and found him oblivious to any hijacking attempt. The flight was allowed to continue and authorities arrested the man upon his arrival in Vienna.
Other passengers on the flight had no inkling of the drama unfolding around them. Casale was taken aside by the plane's captain.
When the plane landed in Vienna, police detained Casale for questioning but later released him without charge.
For 12 anxious minutes, Austrian Airlines and anti-terror agents in four countries considered the matter anything but a joke.
"It was serious because you have to go through the checks and all the procedures to ensure the threat was not real," said airline spokesman Johannes Davoras.
Vienna Airport police chief Dr Leo Lauber said police released Mr Casale after deciding there was no malice behind the ill-judged prank.
"What he did was stupid but since he had no intention of injuring anybody, we released him," he said. While the incident was exposed as a bizarre prank, the Australian Government was prepared to put its counter-terrorism program into full swing if the messages proved correct.
"We don't need idiots carrying on the way this passenger apparently was," Deputy PM John Anderson said.
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