news Hostages freed, hijacker in custody after security storms CanJet airliner

[rwilli1]

Hostages freed, hijacker in custody after security storms CanJet airliner


Mon Apr 20, 12:24 PM





By Jennifer Ditchburn, The Canadian Press


MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica - Canadians bound for holidays and wedding celebrations in Cuba wept softly and prayed for their safety Monday after a lone gunman with "mental challenges" forced his way through security and stormed their airliner as it prepared to leave an airport in Jamaica.

After a quick-thinking flight attendant convinced their would-be captor to accept cash and belongings in exchange for their freedom, 159 passengers and two crew members were able to escape CanJet Airlines Flight 918 after less than an hour of captivity.

It would be seven more hours, however, before the remaining six crew members would be freed without bloodshed by members of a Jamaican counter-terrorism squad who stormed the Boeing 737's cabin and disarmed the gunman, who apparently wanted to fly to Cuba.

"I'm very relieved, extremely relieved, that it's over and nobody has been hurt," said Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who spent a sleepless night at Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, helping to negotiate the release of the hostages.

Golding issued an abject apology to his country's Canadian guests and offered them deluxe accommodations and cash in exchange for their forgone money and belongings. But foremost on his mind was the question of how it all happened in the first place.

"There was quite clearly a breach of security at the airport," Golding said. "I've asked for an investigation to be done immediately and a report to be made."

Passengers told a harrowing tale of nerve-rattling moments and heroic efforts by crew, a sequence of events that began with angry shouts of, "I'm hijacking this plane," and included a flight attendant being blasted with a fire extinguisher and a shot fired out the aircraft's back door - at whom remains unclear.

For the passengers, the captivity was short-lived, but seemed to take forever to end, said Suzanne Ferguson, one of several people from Atlantic Canada who were headed to Cuba for a wedding.

"We were in the plane about 45 minutes, but in our heads it lasted about three hours - panicking," Ferguson said.

"Finally, someone said, 'Take out all your money and he'll let you out."'

The gunman was young, tall and good-looking, and kept talking and shouting at the passengers, Ferguson recalled: "I mean business, this is a hijacking, sit down, nobody move."

The passengers complied. "We were praying and crying a little bit, but everybody was quiet." Indeed, Ferguson added, the dominant image in many minds was that of airliners striking the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

"I thought he wanted to crash the plane, like in New York," she said. "That's what we were all thinking."

When the time finally came to exit the plane, Ferguson said many of the passengers had the remaining six crew members, particularly the flight attendants, in their thoughts. "We were praying for them because they were so good for us. They were calm and told us what to do. We were lucky."

There were several wedding parties on board the plane, including one comprised entirely of hearing-impaired people - including the bride and groom. Their efforts to communicate with sign language only served to agitate their captor, some said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was coincidentally in the capital city of Kingston to meet with Golding and address a joint session of Parliament, instead travelled to Montego Bay to congratulate his Jamaican counterpart in person.

"The prime minister of Canada just got off the phone with the Jamaican prime minister," said spokesman Dimitri Soudas. "Prime Minister Harper thanked Prime Minister Golding for his efforts to oversee the situation and congratulated him for the successful resolution."

The pair were expected to hold a joint news conference later Monday.

With the passengers long since disembarked, the eight-hour hijacker-and-hostage drama came to an abrupt but peaceful end when members of the Jamaican Defence Force Counter-Terrorism Operations Group "stormed" the cabin, said National Security Minister Dwight Nelson.

In all, 182 people - 174 passengers and eight crew members - had been scheduled to be on board, the airline said.

Kent Woodside, vice-president and general manager of Halifax-based CanJet, hailed the efforts of the airline's staff to deal with the situation and for getting all the passengers safely off the plane.

"I'm just so proud of how they dealt with it all and that it turned out to be a successful situation," Woodside told a news conference in Halifax.

A second CanJet plane was being sent to Montego Bay to pick up any passengers who want to return to Canada, while those who want to continue to their original destination of Santa Clara, Cuba, will also be able to do so, he added.

Woodside said CanJet will work with officials in Jamaica to determine how the gunman was able to breach security.

"The front-line security rests with the airport or the airport authority; (There are) many steps of security before he would have reached the aircraft, so that's the part of the investigation that we're going to be participating with the Jamaican authorities on, is how this was allowed to happen."

Police in Jamaica identified the man in custody as Stephen Fray, 23, a resident of Montego Bay. No other details were immediately available, although Information Minister Daryl Vaz earlier described him as a man with "mental challenges."

Alphonse Gosselin, whose son Christian was on board with girlfriend Nancy as part of a group of people from New Brunswick's Acadian Peninsula headed to Cuba for a wedding, spoke with his son shortly after the pair were released.

"He was kind of shaken up, but basically he said everybody in the gang was OK," Gosselin told media from his home in Tracadie-Sheila, N.B.

The flight was the first ever for his son's girlfriend, he added. "She was quite nervous, so I don't know if she'll ever fly again."

In an interview, Vaz said he was surprised about the fact that someone with a gun was able to breach security.

"That is something our investigation has already started with the police and the operators of the airport and of course, the government airport authority," he said. "That is something that is ongoing and in the early stages."