Ethiopia Hijacker 'Threatened To Crash Plane'

A co-pilot who hijacked his own plane in a bid to gain asylum threatened to crash the aircraft, a passenger has claimed.

The Ethiopian man, who has been named as Hailemedehin Abera Tagegn, seized control of the Boeing 767 when the Italian pilot went to the toilet.
Ethiopian Airlines flight ET702, with 202 passengers and crew on board, had taken off from the Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, bound for Rome.


                  he rope used by the co-pilot to leave the plane

And passenger Francesco Cuomo told Italian news agency ANSA the pilot demanded the hijacker open the door and tried unsuccessfully to break it down.
He added the hijacker, speaking in poor English on a loudspeaker, threatened to crash the aircraft if the pilot persisted. The plane's oxygen masks then came down, Mr Cuomo said.

Another passenger, Diego Carpelli, told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera: "We had no clue about the hijacking but got scared when the plane suddenly started diving, it seemed like it was falling from the sky." Pleas read more from http://news.sky.com/story/1212725/ethiopia-hijacker-threatened-to-crash-plane