Monday 25 April 2011

Hijacking a single engined aircraft


I could not believe it's true when I first heard of this incredible story my client presented the other day. But after his explanations on the phone I felt he is apparently in big trouble to verify an insured loss and I promised to try my best to help. Here is the original report of an enthusiast and member of PlanePictures.net André Garcez:

(LPCS Cascais, Portugal) 12-February-2010: Private Pacific Aerospace PAC-750XL André Garcez D-FGOJ c/n 139. ex ZK-JDQ. Straight from a Hollywood movie. A ex-military hijacked the aircraft, after pretending to be a photographer shooting parachute jumps from inside the airplane. The aircraft took off from LPEV (Évora) to LPCS (Tires) with 2 parachuters, and right after, the hijacker diverted the aircraft using a pistol. When the aircraft was landing at Tires, the pilot managed to take the weapon from the terrorist, but he went for the controls and tried to crash the airplane. The parachuters jumped at very low altitude and the aircraft landed with the engine shut down, with a strugle between the pilot and the hijacker, skidded into a ditch breaking the left wing and left again to the grass breaking the landing gear. The pilot jumped from the aircraft as soon as it hit the ground and the hijacker committed suicide (you can see him underneath the left wing). It also seems that the hijacker's car exploded in Évora. Handheld, raining a lot, and almost dark.
Incredible story, isn't it? What brave reaction this pilot had shown! I would have been scared to death...