PALESTINIAN HIJACKER HELD AFTER CRISIS ENDS IN MIAMI.Byline: Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire Airport administrators were in a security briefing Friday when their beepers alerted them to a real-life crisis: A Madrid-to-Havana DC-10 had been hijacked by someone claiming to have a bomb - and he was demanding to land in Miami. With a dozen heavily armed Special Weapons and Tactics officers waiting on the tarmac, Iberia Airlines Iberia Líneas Aéreas de España, S.A., (IBEX-35:IBLA) (Iberia Airlines of Spain in English), usually shortened to Iberia, is the largest airline of Spain, based in Madrid and is the Spanish flag carrier. It operates an extensive international network of services. Flight 6621 safely landed at Miami International Airport Miami International Airport (IATA: MIA, ICAO: KMIA, FAA LID: MIA) is a public airport located eight miles (13 km) northwest of the central business district of Miami, in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. about 3 p.m. Saad'o Mohamed Ibrahim, a Palestinian refugee  The of this article or section may be compromised by "weasel words".You can help Wikipedia by removing weasel words. , quickly surrendered to police, and all 231 people aboard were safely taken off the plane. Instead of an explosive, investigators found a bogus bomb: a tape recorder tape recorder, device for recording information on strips of plastic tape (usually polyester) that are coated with fine particles of a magnetic substance, usually an oxide of iron, cobalt, or chromium. The coating is normally held on the tape with a special binder. covered with aluminum foil Noun 1. aluminum foil - foil made of aluminum aluminium foil, tin foil foil - a piece of thin and flexible sheet metal; "the photographic film was wrapped in foil" , with a couple of wires pulled out. ``The device he had was a hoax device,'' said Paul R. Philip, head of the FBI's Miami office. ``We have the device.'' Philip said Ibrahim, 27, would be charged with air piracy air piracy n. 1. The hijacking or wrongful seizure of an aircraft. 2. The illegal reception and descrambling of television signals relayed by satellite. air pirate n. , a felony that carries a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison. He said Ibrahim gave no explanation for the hijacking hijacking Crime of seizing possession or control of a vehicle from another by force or threat of force. Although by the late 20th century hijacking most frequently involved the seizure of an airplane and its forcible diversion to destinations chosen by the air pirates, when , other than wanting to go to Miami. According to Francisco Garcia, a Spanish government spokesman in Madrid, Spain, Ibrahim said aboard the plane: ``If I put these two wires together, this bomb will blow up.'' He also threatened the crew with a black-handled letter opener, Garcia said. ``There was never a bomb on board the plane,'' Garcia said. Spanish officials said Ibrahim was born in 1968 in Lebanon and had escaped from a refugee camp in south Lebanon. He left Beirut on Thursday for Zurich, Switzerland, and made a connection on Swiss Air to Madrid. He spent the night in a passenger waiting area at Madrid's Barajas Airport before catching the Iberia flight Friday. Spokeswomen at the Embassy of Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority office in Washington, D.C., both said they were unaware of the hijacker's identity, and their diplomatic missions had not been contacted by U.S. officials. Security officials at the Madrid airport detected nothing unusual about the flight before it departed, the Spanish news service EFE EfE Environment for Europe (EU) EFE Einstein Field Equations (general relativity) EFE Early Fuel Evaporation (Automotive Emission Control) EFE Endocardial Fibroelastosis reported. ``This man did not want to go to Havana. He wanted to go here. He got his wish, and he is under arrest. All he wanted was to surrender. We said that's fine with us.'' CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Passengers of the Madrid-to-Havana flight leave thei r plane in Miami on Friday after the hijacker's arrest. Associated Press |
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