Ethiopian Pilot Hijacks Plane, Requests Asylum in Switzerland

Geneva, 17 Feb 2014 (SDN) –Swiss authorities detained the hijacker of an Ethiopian Airlines flight that was forced to land at Geneva’s international airport on Monday and police said all passengers were unhurt.

Passengers left the plane parked near the end of the runway and were checked by police as they held their hands on their necks, before boarding a bus, a Reuters witness said.

The man who hijacked the flight was the co-pilot, according to the Geneva airport where the plane was forced to land.

The co-pilot said he had seized his chance when the pilot went to the bathroom, Bertrand Staempfli, the airport spokesman, told reporters.

“He said he felt threatened in his country and wants to seek asylum in Switzerland,” he said.

Airport police said the situation was “under control” after flight ET 702 had been diverted from its original destination of Rome. The airline earlier said the flight from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa had been “forced to proceed” to Geneva.

Swiss police did not immediately identify the hijacker.

State-run Ethiopian television said there had been 193 passengers on board the Boeing aircraft, including 140 Italian nationals.

The brief drama in Geneva on Monday morning caused the cancellation of some short-haul flights and some incoming flights were diverted to other airports. Hundreds of passengers booked on disrupted flights scrambled to change their tickets.

Asylum

In an apparent recording of a radio communication between the aircraft and air traffic control posted on the social media site Twitter, a demand for asylum was made.

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the recording and it was not immediately clear whether it was a hijacker or pilot speaking from the plane.

“We need asylum or assurance we will not be transferred to the Ethiopian government,” the voice in the recording said, posted by Twitter user @MatthewKeysLive.

A flight tracking app for mobile devices showed the flight circling over the Swiss city several times before landing.

Ethiopian nationals and the Horn of Africa country’s flag carrier have been involved in several hijackings in the past.

In 1993, an Ethiopian used a gun hidden in his hat to hijack a German passenger jet bound for New York. He was later sentenced to 20 years in a U.S. prison.

Two years later, police in Greece overpowered an Ethiopian hijacker who held a knife to the throat of an Olympic Airways stewardess and demanded political asylum.

At least 50 people were killed when a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet crashed in the Indian Ocean in 1996. In 2001, a dozen Ethiopian students hijacked a plane carrying around 60 people and flew to Sudan.

Source: Hindustan Times