Summary Co-pilot of an Ethiopian Airlines plane hijacked his own aircraft and forced a landing in Geneva.
GENEVA (AFP) - The co-pilot of an Ethiopian Airlines plane hijacked his own aircraft Monday by threatening to crash it and forced a landing in Geneva so he could seek asylum, igniting what one passenger described as "pure fear".
The Ethiopian locked himself in the cockpit when the captain went to the bathroom during flight ET-702 from Addis Ababa, which had been due to fly to Rome.
He was swiftly arrested in Geneva after scaling down a rope out of the cockpit window and prosecutors said the chances of his demands being met were slim.
"We thought the co-pilot had gone mad," Francesco Cuomo, a 25-year-old development economist who was on board, was quoted by Italian media as saying.
"The captain was threatening to open the cockpit door and tried to break it down without success. That s when we understood that something serious was going on.
"When we started circling over Geneva, there were moments of pure fear," he said.
After landing in Rome from Geneva, another passenger, Diego Gardelli, told the ANSA news agency: "At one point a stewardess told us Are you Christian? Then pray to God. That s what I m doing ."
Gardelli said the passengers did not realise they had been hijacked until the captain told them after landing. They thought there had been a technical problem.
"We thought we were going to plunge into the sea," he said, adding that passengers were also told to wear oxygen masks for half an hour during the flight.
"We feared the worst," said Elda, a 75-year-old passenger, adding that passengers were frisked one by one after coming off the plane "because they thought there could be accomplices".
A total of 202 passengers and crew were on board the Boeing 767 as the drama unfolded.
Head of operations at Geneva airport, Xavier Wohlschlag, told the ATS news agency the hijacker s request to land was initially denied.
The green light was not given until around 5:30 am (0430 GMT), as the plane, which was first escorted by Italian fighter jets and later reportedly by French ones, circled the region.
It emerged later on Monday that no Swiss fighter jets were scrambled as the hijack happened outside the business hours of the country s airforce, which operate between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm.
The plane finally landed in Geneva at 6:02 am, about an hour and a half after it was due in Rome.
