Alitalia Aircraft hijacked
 

Just been reported by news agencies that an Alitalia aircraft has been hijacked.

No further news so far

Sagey

BBC Breaking News:-

A plane has landed at the French city of Lyon after being apparently hijacked on a flight from Italy, reports quoting French officials say.
Sixty-seven passengers are reported to be on board.

An unconfirmed report said the plane was an Alitalia service originally flying from Bologna in Italy to Paris.

An armed man was said to have carried out the hijack.

Some passengers were said to have got off the plane in Lyon.

A spokesman at Lyon airport told BBC News Online he was unaware of any incident.

A spokesperson for the National Police in Paris said a man had given himself up.

From http://news.bbc.co.uk

CNN
 

Saying basically same, just heard that hijacker has been arrested and all on board are safe.:)

Corriere della Sera has it slightly different from BBC in that it reports the aircraft as being an MD80, as opposed to a B737 as per BBC, and that the hijacker was not armed. Corriere also mentions that he's an ex-cop and he previously tried to hijack an Air France flight and a high speed train in Italy - so how he got on this plane defeats me.

A modicum of passenger profilling might come in useful..?

amofw

Lyon Hijack
 

BBC are now reporting that this poor demented soul tried to hijack the flight with a TV remote control.
A new item on the prohibited in hand-baggage list?
John Burgess

'Brandished a box' according to AP: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAWY54I19D.html

Sounds like just a nutter (thankfully). Nobody's found a way to keep them off yet :mad:

AManOfFewWords: don't even suggest profiling in public, over here in the US.

The process might hurt peoples' feelings. One of our govt leaders, a Mr. Norm Mineta, is against profiling. Is he afraid that it could lead to higher prices for a barrel of oil?

If certain foreign govts or cartels attempt to raise the price of oil any more, then just maybe we should publicly (between this govt's leaks and the Internet, what is not public? Never mind the NTSB...) discuss shipping the Israelis, cost free, about fifty F-15/F-16 fighters with about 500 laser-guided missiles.

On the other hand, maybe these proposals are too subtle.

Good old BBC......................... I think every news bulletin should start with "Once upon a time"


Maybe they would care to comment on the size of AZ's B737 fleet. :rolleyes:

LP

No, he is still carrying the baggage from being interned in the US during WWII. It would of course be politically incorrect (see other thread) for anyone in the administration to suggest this might be affecting his judgment.

What is the Alitalia door locking procedure? Did the nutter get by an armoured door.....or was it built with a FIAT doorlock?

We've just spent $6M retrofitting with new doors. I thought we'd get better value for money with $6M worth of extra Flightdeck muscle who could also do the walkround and keep sticky little fingers out of the pax baggage.

Just a thought.

You'll probably find if you travel on european airlines that the doors are unlocked- and can even get the jump seat if you ask.

Just got this in an email from an ex girlfriend of mine (she is Italian).

I heard about it in the evening news.
Apparently the man said he was a terrorist but the captain understood that he was not. The man said that he wanted a press conference organised for him. so the captain suggeted to land in Lyon and told the man that the press conference was going to be organised there as soon as they would have landed. But the man found the police waiting for him rather than the journalists.
apparently in the past the same man had already hijacked a eurostar to Milan and another plane flying to France. He must be an old acquaintance of the police or captains.....?!

In the USA they already do a kind of profiling. Just been on half a dozen flights there last week and got stopped / extra check at gate several times. It isn't all random. One of the airline gate staff explained that certain factors generate a trigger for an extra check. They have a list of those people down for this at the gate.

Mind you, the new TSA security guys are WAY better than the previous goons. Polite but thorough. And they are efficient / have enough staff to do the job properly. Didn't have to wait more than five minutes at any of the airports I went to. Plus their training seems to be consistent across all airports.

CS

It appears that he was a cop until placed on sick leave due to going crazy. Not long after that he attempted to hijack a train from Rome to Milan, sticking up the driver with a toy gun and demanding he go to Paris. (Surely shome mistake!) In March, 1999, he hijacked an AF Airbus from Marseille to Paris (Orly), to Paris (CDG). He declared that he wanted to promote a new religion called "Vitalunism" which required the unification of Europe. He was arrested, pronounced unfit to stand trial, and released into "the community" i.e. let go.

This from the Guardian.

We've had pax profiling for onger than most realise. I was in the check-in queue (line?) for a PA fight to Frankfurt-Athens just after the Lockerbie downing and was interrogated by security staff due to having a Saudi resident's visa (in a British passport). When I explained that I lived there they asked about the UAE and Bahrain visas, - "hey guys - that's where we go for holidays!"

As I had with me 3 mini-terrorists with British Visior's Passports (issued to Brits as temporary short-term passports) aged between 8 and 13, now I guess I can understand this - they must have "profiled" my kids :)

Suicide
 

Just reported on TV5 that the Alitalia hijacker of the 27th November committed suicide in his cell last night ! :(

Apparantly the prison authorities were investigating the death of his cellmate the previous evening

The 2 had been 'playing a game' were by they were putting plastic bags over their heads.

Why wasn't this guy in a secure mental hospital.


Here's the report

As long as he is dead, it's one less security risk to the public.

Pinguin, " suiciding " mentally ill people was done in the early 1940,s in certain parts of Western Europe. I hope you do not join this ideology.
:(

That idea never crossed my mind but it crossed yours. What were you thinking?