FA's throw boiling water on Air Mauritania hijacker
 

A hijacker tried to force an Air Mauritania plane to go to France :confused:

The pilot diverted to the Canary islands, and announced in French on the PA (since he'd deterimined the hijacker didn't speak French) that he'd do a hard breaking and accelleration upon touchdown; the pax braced themselves but the hijacker didn't. He fell, FA's splashed him with boiling water and the pax jumped the guy and restrained him.

Another hijacking prevented NOT by airport security but by pax and crew. One more reason that it makes no sense to take away our pocket knifes and shoes; the bad guys will get stuff on board anyway, let the pax carry things to use to fight back.

BTW, in the wake of this I bet the TSA bans hot coffee in the galleys, since al Qaeda could use that hot water to attack us, just like the FA's used it on the idiot.

Oh, and the pilots name is Ahmedou Mohamed Lemine- sounds like a Moslem male- we'd better profile him just in case. <NOT>

Crew smarts and passenger revolt are things the TSA doesn't want you to think that could happen. It threatens the TSA's existence.

Well, this took place outside the US on a plane travelling between two foreign coutries, so I dare say the TSA had little to do with it one way or another, no matter how central they are to anyone's litany of domestic gripes.

Some of the things that struck me about how lucky these pax were:

1> The pilot has a language he can speak around the hijacker. Who LETS him.

2> The FA's rearrange the women/kids into the back and the men up front. And the hijacker LETS them.

3> After the announcement and move the hijacker does NOT notice the PAX bracing themselves AND continues to stand in the aisle - near the men who moved up front.

4> ... is a 7mm handgun? Like a 38 or something?

I also noticed that the guy got TWO handguns onto the airplane. Wonder how he was able to do that first try (gotta figure getting caught doing that would have led to consequences) in their security environment.

Actually, since there seems to be a pattern here, the only responsible thing to do is to profile.

Demographics PLUS behavior.

Disagree?

Yes.

The liquid thing in London also took place outside the US. We still managed to interfere with Scotland Yard's case.

My point was to demonstrate how crew smarts and passenger rebellion can happen anywhere, and the TSA doesn't want you to think that way.

Very well said.

The interference had to do with the fact that they were specifically planning on targeting a U.S. - bound flight, no?

I guess I must be living in a delusional world (as opposed to say ... the Executive Branch) where any sign of a hijacking would result in a knock to the noggin with the nearest laptop, or two?

Pattern? A Moslem male pilot rallied the pax (and I'm sure many of them were also Moslem males) to thwart a hijacking.

The plane was Mauritanian. Mauritania has a 99.84% Moslem population. (source: wikipedia). So, maybe they should just profile 99.84% of their passengers and crew?

By the way, please tell me what a Moslem looks like. I'm sure they all look alike and are easy to profile. (I have on a number of times been asked in Arabic by Palestinians if I was Arab. If they can't tell, how do you expect the TSA to be able to tell? You think a hijacker will have honest ID and will not lie?)

Oh $hit, someone with a Moslem name was pilotting the plane and saved all the pax.
Better make sure he cant fly airplanes anymore.

Really? Can you point to a cite, link, or responsible article about that? It seems a farfetched hypothesis.....

Dude, I am pretty sure that was sarcasm.

That's where the smilies, tacky though they can be, are helpful. With on-line discussions we miss the intonation, body language cues, etc, so it's often hard to tell if someone is serious, sarcastic, subtle, or clueless.
:(

Unfortunately TSA and the EU will use this to ban water and all liquids on all flights. :td: Who cares, as long as less than 0.01% of the pax or crew die from dehydration per flying hour, they will consider it a worthwhile trade off for Safety. Future "Retake the Plane" attempts will require placing an empty coffeepot in the lav with a sign "Please give generously and soon, we have an armed hijacker that needs scalding." That is, only untill they ban those "improvised coffeepot weapons".

You're assuming hijackers are intelligent. Most aren't very intelligent--it's a crime you so often don't get away from.