Tejon, you could be right about the appeasement factor, but you never know. Sounds like the guy was so polite (for a hijacker) and sincere that they thought they could land the plane safely, rather than have him blow up the passengers.
From Yahoo News / AFP
Passengers tell of chatty hijack with 'not much panic' Wed Oct 4, 7:45 AM ET
The passengers of a Turkish Airlines (THY) plane hijacked Tuesday to Italy has flown back to Istanbul with tales of a relatively calm and chatty experience.
"Thank God, this affair ended without anything serious happening," said Ergun Erkoseoglu on Wednesday, a burly, bearded Turkish passenger in T-shirt and baseball cap who spent much of the ordeal on his cellphone with the newsroom of the NTV news channel.
"We were told we would land in Italy because of a technical problem at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, so there was not much panic and we went on chatting among ourselves," he said. "Only when we saw the Italian soldiers at the airport did we know that something was going on."
Some passengers did not realize that they were hijacked until they turned on their cellphones, said another Turkish traveller, Halil Demir.
"When we landed, we turned on our mobile telephones and we began receiving messages (from relatives) that we had been hijacked," he said.
The air pirate was identified as 28-year-old Hakan Ekinci, an army deserter being sent back to Turkey and facing eventual arrest when he hijacked the plane he was being deported on from Albania.
The unarmed Ekinci entered the cockpit about 20 minutes after take-off from Tirana en route to Istanbul and threatened the pilots with a parcel he said contained a bomb, according to Turkish officials.
"The hijacker forced his way into the cockpit as the chief flight attendant was serving us. He pushed her into my lap and I tried to push him out, but failed. He was a big fellow," pilot Mursel Gokalp told a press conference at Ataturk airport.
"He said 'I'm not going to hurt anyone'... He said his sole aim was to give a message to the pope, that he would surrender afterwards, but that he would blow up the plane otherwise," Gokalp explained.
Ekinci -- reportedly a convert to Christianity and a conscientious objector -- asked for political asylum in Italy after surrendering to the police.
Italian authorities said Wednesday that Ekinci did not have a letter addressed to Pope Benedict XVI on his person.
But he had written a letter in August to Pope Benedict XVI, seeking his help to avoid military service in Turkey.
Erkoseoglu, who said he was sitting in the front of the plane, said he saw the hijacker enter the cockpit after pushing aside a flight attendant, but said passengers suspected nothing until the plane landed at the southern Italian city of Brindisi.
The hijacker "apologized and wished us good night" before the pilot led him out to surrender to the Italian police, passengers said.
The Turkish and mostly Albanian travellers aboard the flight spoke to the media and their friends and relatives by cellphone throughout the standoff.
At one point, they were heard on television -- through Erkoseoglu's phone -- breaking into applause as the hijacker apologized and bade farewell to the passengers before surrendering.
Senior THY officials greeted the plane bringing the passengers back from Brindisi. All of the 113 people on board the hijacked Boeing 737-400, except for the hijacker and a traveller who chose to stay in Italy, were flown to Istanbul.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse.
Yahoo News / Reuters
Turkish hijacker threatened to blow himself up By Robin Pomeroy
Wed Oct 4, 10:25 AM ET
A man who hijacked a Turkish Airlines flight on Tuesday was unarmed and threatened to blow up the plane if the pilot did not divert the flight to Italy, officials and crew said on Wednesday.
All 107 passengers and six crew on the Boeing 737 were unharmed in the hijack which ended with one man's arrest in Brindisi airport in southern Italy late on Tuesday.
But while Italian authorities said 27-year-old Turk Hakan Ekinci acted alone, the Turkish Justice Ministry said two men were involved, and named the second hijacker as Mehmet Ertas.
The pilot said Ekinci stormed the cockpit shortly after the flight took off from Tirana bound for Istanbul. He has requested political asylum in Italy.
"While the chief stewardess entered the cockpit to ask if we needed anything, the terrorist entered by force. I tried to push him out but he was a big man and I failed to stop him," Turkish Airlines captain Mursel Gokalp told reporters in Istanbul.
"He said his only aim was to give a message to the Pope and then he would submit himself to the police. He said that if he failed to deliver his message his three friends at the back of the plane would detonate the plastic bombs they had," he said.
Turkish media said Ekinci was a Christian convert who wanted to avoid military service in Turkey and wrote to Pope Benedict several months ago for help to avoid serving in a "Muslim army."
PECULIAR INCIDENT
The incident raised questions about how an unarmed person could hijack an aircraft after all the security alerts following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
"The peculiar thing about this hijack was that it was done by a lone, unarmed man," Italy's Interior Minister Giuliano Amato told a Senate hearing on the incident.
A Tirana airport video released to Reuters showed Ekinci undergoing repeated security checks and a body search after a metal detector went off twice. He had to remove his belt and sweater and empty his pockets before being allowed to board.
Security has been upgraded in recent years at Tirana's international airport, which is run by a German-U.S. firm.
Amato said Ekinci traveled to Albania in May and requested asylum there on the grounds that he was viewed as a deserter from the Turkish army and would be punished if he went home.
Albania refused his request and he was expelled from the country on the Turkish Airlines flight from Tirana to Istanbul.
The Vatican said the hijacking was not expected to affect plans for a visit to Turkey next month by Pope Benedict, who offended many Muslims with a speech last month linking the spread of the Islamic faith to violence.
KNEW THE CODE
According to passengers, 20 minutes into the flight the pilot announced that a technical failure at Istanbul airport meant the plane would have to land in Italy.
"But when we saw Italian soldiers at the airport we understood the situation. The plane was hijacked. There was no panic among the passengers," passenger Ergun Erkoseoglu told a news conference at Istanbul airport.
When the pilot transmitted a code which alerts air traffic controllers to emergency situations, Ekinci told him to insert the more specific code which refers to a hijack.
"The pilot said he knew procedures and the meaning of codes and said he learned it all on the Internet," Amato told the Senate. "I don't know how many of you would have known how to do that, I certainly wouldn't have."
As he surrendered, the hijacker said sorry to the captain, shook his hand and told passengers: "I apologize to all of you. Good night."
At the Vatican, Cardinal Pio Laghi said the kidnap "worried us not just because of the risk of blood being spilled, but also because other people might copy this violent act."
"But I don't think this episode will have any influence on the Holy Father's trip," he told reporters.
Amato said that while the hijack exposed the "fragility" of security on the flight in question, it did not heighten security concerns for the Pope's trip.
(Additional reporting by Paul De Bendern in Istanbul and Benet Koleka in Tirana)
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited.
