Anybody remember the good old days of airplane hijackings?

[FN FAL]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2171073.cms

MUMBAI: On Saturday, a retired Air India (AI) pilot will relive the life-and-death ordeal he encountered almost 25 years ago.

He will meet one of the hijackers who seized his Boeing 707 aircraft along with 79 passengers and crew in the Seychelles and forced it to fly to South Africa.

The ex-mercenary, Peter Duffy, who served a jail term, will fly down from Delhi to Mumbai to come face-to-face with former AI pilot Capt U C Saxena.

The South African Duffy and the Indian pilot will spend the day discussing the events that unfolded on November 25, 1981, at the Victoria Mahe airport in the Seychelles.

"It's the first time I will be meeting him after the hijack,"Capt Saxena, 64, told TOI on Friday. "It was he who desired to meet me. One of the things I am going to ask him is whether he intended to blow up the plane. I know he will not lie to me."

On that fateful day, 44 mainly South African mercenaries, who had arrived in the Seychelles to stage a coup against President Albert Rene, forced themselves into Kamet, the AI 707 plane, which had just arrived from Zimbabwe and was on its way to Bombay.

The armed mercenaries had earlier arrived on a Royal Swazi Airlines chartered plane from Swaziland. Posing as rugby players, the mercenaries had almost managed to clear customs along with their hidden weapons when an Indian customs officer, Vincent Pillay, detected a dismantled AK-47 assault rifle.

Realising that they had been outed, a gunfight soon broke out at the airport between the armed men and the local military police.

"They could not enter the city. So they forced the air traffic control to make us land our plane. As soon as the ladder was put up, they barged into the aircraft and took us hostage,"recalled Capt Saxena.

Duffy, a photographer and karate expert, was one of the 44 men who, along with ringleader Mike Hoare, an Irishman, forced themselves in as the confused AI passengers cowered. After three-and-a-half hours at Mahe airport, the pilot was given an ultimatum. "They ordered us to fly to South Africa,"Capt Saxena said.

Supplies were low on the aircraft—food and water soon ran out, children were crying and, as Saxena put it, "The hijackers had finished off every drop of alcohol on the plane."

After a four-hour flight, the aircraft landed at Durban where all the hijackers surrendered. "Before leaving, Peter told me, 'We must meet some day.'

I replied, 'Not under such circumstances',"Saxena recollected. The flight returned safely to Mumbai three days later with all the passengers and crew returning unharmed.

Duffy got a five-year term, but served only 21 months in prison before he was released.

:nuts:

 

[FN FAL]

Supplies were low on the aircraft—food and water soon ran out, children were crying and, as Saxena put it, "The hijackers had finished off every drop of alcohol on the plane."

Those magnificent bastards.

 

[FN FAL]

I know there are a lot of airline pilots that were just a gleam in their daddy's eye when this hijacking occured, but Col. Mad Mike Hoare and this "party" was the inspiration for the movie "the wild geese" staring Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Rodger Moore. Although the movie is probably more fiction than fact, it does host a HALO scene, a Cessna 310 with an external bomb load, some DC-3 flying and more than a gaggle of UZI's and FN FAL's.

 

[Traderd]

I know there are a lot of airline pilots that were just a gleam in their daddy's eye when this hijacking occured, but Col. Mad Mike Hoare and this "party" was the inspiration for the movie "the wild geese" staring Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Rodger Moore. Although the movie is probably more fiction than fact, it does host a HALO scene, a Cessna 310 with an external bomb load, some DC-3 flying and more than a gaggle of UZI's and FN FAL's.

FN FAL's? Plural? I thought there could only be one of you!

 

[FN FAL]

FN FAL's? Plural? I thought there could only be one of you!

Ha...you thought they threw away the mold? Nah, check it out, there's some growing right there and right there and...

:laugh: