Ethiopian Airlines Hijacking

[linkebungu]

Ethiopian flight 702 from Addis to Rome was hijacked over Sudan and flown to Geneva. According to folks listening in on ATC there was lots of circling as hijackers demanded asylum, plane ended up landing with approx. 10 mins fuel remaining, 1 engine flamed out.

BBC News - Swiss confirm Ethiopian plane hijack (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26222674)

[gear up job]

something about this hijacking story doesn't add up.

[linkebungu]

Appears the FO was seeking political asylum in Switzerland.

News is saying he waited until the CA left for the toilet and then locked himself in the cockpit - and yet the pax were not aware of a hijacking? This allegedly occurred over Sudan, that's a long time for the passengers to see the CA banging on the outside of the cockpit door.

[gear up job]

My question is if the copilot took control somewhere over Italy, why was the aircraft squawking 7500 over Khartoum?

How did the copilot continued doing so for the rest of the five hour plus trip?

Surely the skipper would have realised at some point in the flight that they were on a different squawk.

[linkebungu]

And surely if he didn't notice, ATC would have queried them and brought it to his attention

[Rotorwashed]

And surely if he didn't notice, ATC would have queried them and brought it to his attention

I was under the impression that if you squawk 7500 the controllers will keep it under wraps so as not to alert the hijacker in the cockpit that the pilot's being sneaky?

[linkebungu]

I was under the impression that if you squawk 7500 the controllers will keep it under wraps so as not to alert the hijacker in the cockpit that the pilot's being sneaky?

Ah I hadn't even thought of that. That makes sense, although how would ATC know if it was a real threat vs an accidental squawk if they couldn't confirm?