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Jet Fakes Fuel Emergency So They Can Watch Soccer Game!

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User546

The Ultimate Show Stopper
Joined
Jan 24, 2004
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1,958
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/09/21/fake.emergency.ap/index.html

Airliner fakes emergency so passengers can watch soccer game


LIMA, Peru (AP) -- A chartered jet carrying 289 Gambian soccer fans pretended it needed to make an emergency landing so they could watch their team compete in the FIFA Under 17 World Championships, officials said Wednesday. The plane, claiming to be low on fuel, landed Tuesday near the stadium in Peru's northern coast city of Piura.

"It truly was a scam," said Betty Maldonado, a spokeswoman for Peru's aviation authority, CORPAC. "They tricked the control tower, saying they were low on fuel."

Emergency crews were scrambled ahead of the unscheduled landing by the Lockhead L1011 Tri-Star, owned by Air Rum Ltd., Maldonado said.

The Air Rum plane, which she said was chartered by Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, should have made its approach to the capital, Lima, but instead flew directly to Piura, entering Peruvian air space "without permission."

The passengers were permitted to attend African team's 3-1 victory over Qatar on Tuesday night, she added, but the plane remained in Piura on Wednesday while authorities determined what penalty, if any, to levy against the airline.

Gambian newspaper Daily Observer reported on its Web page Wednesday that the group of fans had been delayed for a week in a hotel in the small West African nation and were forced Friday to watch their country's victory over Brazil on television.
 
I can see ICAO defining a new rule so that pilots can declare, "soccer critical".
 
Air Rum?

;)
 
In most of the world people take soccer pretty seriously. Ive seen al sorts of riots breakout on TV over someones team losing.

Not sure if it was Columbia or not, but a player on a Columbian team accidentally kicked the ball into their own goal and they ended up losing the game. Afterwards, the Columbian mafia exectued him.
 
That was during the World Cup in the USA in 1994 when the USA beat Columbia because of that. USA was a huge underdog so the gamblers lost big when we won.
 

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