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| India-Pakistan |
| A herd, not a pack - passengers kept ignorant to prevent "panic" while "hijacker" roamed plane |
| 2009-02-03 |
| Jitendra Kumar Mohala, a 42-year-old chartered accountant, who claimed to be an armed hijacker onboard a Delhi-bound flight from Goa, reportedly claimed to be different things - a DGCA official, a sky marshal, a pilot. But nothing was as scary as his claim of being a hijacker. "He claimed to belong to a terror group called Maula and told an air hostess that he was carrying a pouch of infected needles that, if pricked, could sedate people. Psychologists say Mohala could be suffering from frustration aggression syndrome, which manifests itself in sudden bouts of violence behaviour. Is that anything like Sudden Jihad Syndrome? He has been remanded to 14 days' judicial custody. He has been booked under sections 336 (endangering life and personal safety of others) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC, as well as Suppression of Unlawful Act Against Safety Of Civil Aviation Act, 1982, which is non-bailable. The other two persons detained along with Mohala - Sameer Uppal and Harmeet Anand - were released by Sunday late evening after questioning because there was nothing to suggest that they were active participants in the incident. Sources said, during the flight, the chartered accountant made a dash to the front end of the aircraft where airhostesses were seated. "The crew got very scared but at the last minute, Mohala went inside the lavatory and locked himself there for some time. He went to the toilet many times. He also kept changing his seat during the flight," said sources. Typical hijacker or system testing behaviour. Why didn't they just lock him into the lavatory, given that his threat was needles, not bombs? IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh commended the airhostesses' conduct. "The challenge for them was to keep each other informed of what was going on without spreading panic among passengers. They, along with the pilot, did an amazing job of keeping calm while assuming all along that the unruly passenger could be armed," Ghosh said. The flight's commander, captain Amit Singh, also played safe. I'd rather my pilot were effective rather than safe, but I'm hardly an expert on such things. At 5.15pm, he told Delhi ATC on common frequency that an unruly passenger was creating ruckus on the plane while asking for priority landing. Suspecting something was wrong, the alert ATC official left this plane's frequency on so that they could hear what's transpiring in the cockpit. "This way, the ATC heard Captain Singh's conversation with the four airhostesses and thought they could have a hijack situation. Then the pilot asked for a discreet frequency as all planes use common frequency on final approach to hear what's going on in the sky and ground around them. This collective approach of the airhostesses, pilot and ATC ensured no one - passengers and other aircraft - knew about the unfolding midair terror drama," said sources. Ignorance could have meant death, but at least nobody panicked. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |