There will be consequences from this episode.

Also he is lucky for the Swiss, If this was Asia no one will lets him land.

If you had grounds to suspect that was the case that would be different, of course - but you'd have to prove that in a court of law.

This aircraft wasn't hijacked over Italy, it was squawking 7500 over Sudan at about 1am. Unless FR 24 knew it was going to be hijacked, then why is the story wrong?

Please explain to me how Sudan is now Italy.

Silly comment. Do you seriously think a hijacker/mutinous FO will care about clearances if he is determined to land, and low on fuel? how would Asia stop him? Block the runways and kill a lot of people? :ugh:

Maybe you wrote this in anger towards this guy, but rest assured, he'll get his punishment. No need to endanger others.

Worldpilot. You probably won't get an answer to that on a public forum.
Anyway bet the capt. & crew were rather worried about what was going to happen next prior to the actual landing.

Doesn't necessarily deserve to be called a "hijacking" in my opinion. He had control of the aircraft, at the beginning anyways, for valid reasons. Cry for help, perhaps?

Don't know what other charge they can throw at him but no doubt they'll have something there. I think everyone can agree that there is definitely more to this situation than what has originally came to light.

Without the full details it's hard to completely judge everything. One can only think he never intended to endanger any of his passengers or colleagues because of how the situation came to an abrupt end - could have been talked down though, I guess. The powers that be may come to a different conclusion. I'll be interested so see what is said in the next 72 hours.

It seems like he's definitely an Ethiopian national.

This explains the 03:58 UTC wake up call the neighbourhood got as the QRA Mirage from Orange set off to investigate.

Not sure where FR24 first picked him up[it gets much of its data from PlanePlotter secondary sharers ] but interestingly he first pinged on PP at 36,000 feet after crossing the libyan
coast and he was already showing a 7500 sqwk 0150 GMT
and continued doing so for the rest of the five hour plus trip.

That being the case , why was he not escorted by Italian fighter jets into the first airfield on Italian soil ?

He must have stuck out like a sore thumb over the Med Sea painting 7500 for two hours .
Perhaps he thought Italy would extradite him , whereas as Switzerland wouldn't ??

@ death cruiser: the Swiss Air Force can only be bothered during office hours (8-12 and 13.30-17, as ordered by politicians, with exceptions for international conferences, and Monday nights. No joke) The incident happened too early in the morning, this is why the French escorted them to Geneva. Luckily this frugal and fiercely independent country is surrounded by friends, and has entered treaties to cover such cases...

As mentioned earlier, some companies already have a rule that a flight attendant enters when 1 pilot leaves.

Given this incident, & the suicide last year by the EMB 195 in Namibia (?) it seems common sense that this be universally adopted.

It covers everything from Loonies to incapacitation, the only risk I can imagine being that the flight attendant could be a suicidal nutter who knows where to find a fire axe :uhoh:

Nothing can ever be perfect I guess :rolleyes:

Just curious. How much fuel was left after landing?
I heard just a few minutes.

Damn b263354, looks like that idea is out too. Fedex 705 comes to mind where the only passenger on board was the hijacker in 1994. Add more people to watch over the passenger/s pilots would just add extra cost to the company, and they won't like that much.

VC10
 

The VC10 used to have a toilet in the cockpit, I remember in the 60's showing a couple of Pan Am pilots the SVC10 cockpit, they thought the "John" in the cockpit was great and would save them putting their uniform caps on as they have to do when they visited the toilet in their B707.

Invading Switzerland? Try Before 8 or After 5
 

Timing is priceless...

Invading Switzerland? Try Before 8 or After 5 - Bloomberg

PPL Hobbyist. I would have to disagree that he stole, or was involved in "stealing" the aircraft, as after all he did have control of the aircraft when his colleague went to the toilet. It's all about interpretation.

Perhaps the charge of "abuse by position and authority" but from the details and small amounts of "facts" that are available, if true, it doesn't look like he endangered his passengers by doing anything harmful - I could be proved wrong at a later date.

I'm not sticking up for the bloke in question - far from it. What he did, if true, was wrong, and completely ridiculous, but the media have, not for the first time, jumped in at the deep end with some stupid headlines. No wonder aviation gets a bad name... We're all jumping down this fellas throat with wild thoughts, opinions and views but we probably know 10% of the facts. Or is everything black and white? 99.9% of people on here probably disagree but who gives a :mad:

My question is, if the copilot took control somewhere over Italy, why was the aircraft squawking 7500 over Khartoum? Surely the captain would have realised at some point in the flight that they were on a different squawk.

https://scontent-b-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/...84876448_n.png

Something doesn't seem to add up here.

Definitely, something doesn't add up.

The early reports were that he took over the aircraft over Sudan, but it only got the attention of air forces with PR departments when it appeared over Italy.

If only the French scrambled, and only one aircraft, seems to me many in HQ knew what was happening, and had confidence their FO knew also. I certainly don't condone his actions, but the outcome seems very safe and tidy. Let's not do this too often.

Doesn't matter what he 'intended'. By his actions he clearly put the safety of the flight at risk by interfering with duties of the rest of the crew.