Qatar Airways Incident: Flight 401
Qatar Airways has published a statement with regards to what happened on flight 401 from Aman to Doha on August 10, 2006. Apparently, a man tried to force his way in side the cockpit of the plane forcing the male cabin crew members and three passengers to restrain him. The plane had to go back to Jordan and the man, who was an Eritrean national, was handed to the police authorities. There was no given explanation why the passenger wanted to come inside the cockpit.
I’m sure that those on the plane, all 267 passengers and 12 crew members, were terrified. I would be too. I probably wouldn’t even know what to do. With what happened in the US (September 11 attack on World Trade Center), the whole world has been traumatized. Yes, we do complain of some security policies being enforced on us before we board our flights but I’m sure those measures help a lot in keeping our flights secure. While I was reading the report, the first thing that came to my mind was another terrorist got in a plane and tried to use it to serve his purpose of death and destruction. But after analyzing it, there was no report of a gun being used by the Eritrean man who wanted to “talk” to the Captain of Qatar Airways flight 401 so I’m guessing that he might have been mentally unstable instead of being a terrorist. That is part of the trauma brought about the September 11 attacks. When reading something like this, the first thing that comes to mind is what happened before in the US where hijackers supposed to have taken control of those planes.
I’m just glad that this incident isn’t the same. This was probably air rage but not a terrorist act. For scaring the hell out of those people on the plane, that passenger should be meted out a penalty and he should not be allowed to ride any public transportation again.
