Swiss flight "robbed" on the apron in Brussels
 

How on earth could this happen (if true)??

Armed Robbery On LX789 @ BRU Airport — Civil Aviation Forum | Airliners.net

"Tonight arround 20h00 (8PM) a group of armed robbers (some sources say 8 armed with automatic weapons, driving in 2 vehicles) attacked flight LX789 (Fokker F100) of Swiss, the evening flight to ZRH and robbed the plane which was just loaded with a valuable cargo by Brinks. The cargo is rumoured to be a significant amount of diamonds, no value yet available. The diamonds where scheduled to fly to Zurich."

Was waiting for that to happen...Almost always when flying to
BRU we would have valuable cargo...we sometimes were making our own plans on the flight deck:E

Now just imagine they were 8 determined suicide bombers! What it spells out is that what masquarades as security at airports is just one big con. But we knew that anyway.

Life imitates art
 

Hollywood has already done this one, check out "Heist", which involved a shipment of gold headed to Switzerland!
Great cast, Gene Hackman, Danny DiVito, written by David Mamet.
A very good flick with some attention to detail, a trade mark of Mamet.
No special effects or CGI but enough twists to leave your head spinning.
This one is not over till it is over.

A similar situation happened on a Swissair flight I was working on as a flight attendant in 1995 or 1996 (can't remember). Also in BRU on a late evening flight back to ZRH. It was on a MD80. During the turn to line up on the runway. A pax suddenly stood and shouted that there was a car and some masked men at the back of the plane. A colleague f/a ran to the cockpit. The first officer opened his window and looked back,...saw what was happening. We then rolled all the way down the runway at relatively high speed and ordered to park in a remote area of the airport. The aft cargo door was open. We then spent some time with pax and police in the terminal. Flight was cancelled and I remember the long, generous drink(s) the whole crew had back at the hotel.

As inconvenient and invasive as airport security is to passengers, crew and ground support personnel, it doesn't seem to be much of a problem for motivated and reasonably competent criminals. But then that's true everywhere. While it is possible to have a very high level of physical security just about anywhere, very few people really want to live like that and so tend not to be supportive of the measures necessary to achieve it.

Unfortunately it's true, one of the cars was found burned in a town near Brussels.

A source says the stolen load includes 10 kilograms or diamonds, some sources say they also got some gold.

At 11h00 CET there will be a press briefing by the justice department.


Actually, I'm not surprised they got through the fence, this is quite easy to do at nearly every airport but what I don't understand is that they were able to breach the fence (which is protected by camera's and maybe even motion detection) and use the same hole again to escape. Most of they time when you drive past the airport fence you'll have a 90% chance to pass one or multiple police vehicles, yet they managed to breach the fence, drive over the tarmac, rob the plane, load everything in the vehicles and drive away via the same way they came in. I would have expected to have police at the fence in minutes after the breach was detected. But apparently they didn't got there in time even though it's being said the robbery took about 10 minutes which is quite sufficient to react upto.

Oh well, our police hadn't the best of reputations (except in some specialised fields), I guess they proved it again today...

I just hope they were all wearing their high-viz jackets or there really will be trouble.

Swiss flight "robbed" on the apron in Brussels
 

Smells obviously of an inside job... But it is indeed strange that they could get in and out of the airport perimeter without being bothered.

Read Richard Feynman's account of driving into the most secure place on Earth - and then driving out via a downed fence, only to come in again, and again and again. It was then they told him not to be so silly.

The place was Los Alamos, the secrecy, the Manhattan project.


I used to take money to Bern. New money by the Dak load. I once drove my car over a similar downed fence and parked at LGW for the day. When we got to the (preloaded) aircraft, there was an old guy asleep in a van near the rear door. When we got to Burn, we were met with tanks and a lot of soldiers.

As it happens, I had a snooze on the money on the way down.

The Stopwatch Gang was implicated in the 1974 robbery of gold bars from the Ottawa airport.

A member was also suspected in the 1990 Dorval robbery from a taxiing aircraft under charter by Brinks. The perimeter fence was crashed by a garbage truck and followed by two vans. Shortly before a diversionary pipe bomb had gone off some distance away.

Airplane Thieves Flee With $13.7 Million in Gold, Valuables

Good one:E:ok:

According to the latest info the robbers weren't able to fetch to whole load of diamonds, the left part of it but the value of the stolen diamonds is said to be 50 million EUR. However, English language media, including Reuters are writing the load had an estimated value of 350 million EUR. The worst part is that it were uncut, rough diamonds which makes them virtually untraceable and easy to sell. The whole heist at the plane didn't last longer then 3 minutes. Later one of the used cars (a Mercedes Vito) was found burning. They used blue lights on the cars to be able to make a quick getaway. The diamonds were loaded at Antwerp and where transported by Brink's specialised diamond division Brink's Diamond & Jewellery Services.

Unfortunately this isn't the first time a robbery took place at Brussels Airport, in 2005, 2001, 2000, 1995 and 1982 similar actions happened where either diamonds, gold or other valuable good were stolen. This robbery however seems to be the most valuable of all.

There was a similar robbery around (if I remember) 96-98. If memory serves me well they entered that time via the gate at the Cargo end of the apron.

Also happened at Luxembourg airport in 2000; shots fired, people injured, access/egress via fence. I was working there a few years ago when a similar high-value flight arrived; SWAT team, armoured personnel carriers, roof-top snipers, dogs, the lot.

Nothing that happens in Belgium surprises me - I worked at LGG for a year..................

All pilots and pax must pass the airport security check.

Is it time to include all the robbers as well? :}

Can't see this being reported anywhere on the news feeds?!?

Robbed stuff said to be 10 kg of diamonds worth 350 Million Euros.

Swiss flight "robbed" on the apron in Brussels
 

If true it will certainly be a contender for the heist of the century ...

Swsissair DC9 robbed at Rome in 1981 - when intercepted along the taxiway called company and ground frequencies which suddenly went quiet.
first officer descended to close aft freight door. Cargo found missing in Zrh.