Incidents and Accidents
On February 15, 2007, a Boeing 737-700 on a flight from Nouakchott to Las Palmas in the Spanish Canary Islands was hijacked by Mohamed Abderraman, who was allegedly seeking political asylum in France. Spain has identified him as a Mauritanian, while Mauritania says that he is a Moroccan from the Western Sahara The aircraft had 71 passengers and 8 crew on board.
While explaining to Abderraman that the plane did not have enough fuel to reach France, the captain, Ahmedou Mohamed Lemine, discovered Abderraman did not speak French. When the Moroccan government denied the plane's request to land and refuel at Dakhla in the Western Sahara, the pilot decided to continue on to Las Palmas as planned. Afterwards the captain spoke to the first officer Satvinder Virk who was travelling as safety pilot in French, warning him that upon landing he was going to brake hard, to throw the hijacker off balance and give the crew a chance to overpower him. On landing, the captain did so, and the hijacker fell to the floor, dropping one of his pistols. First officer Virk and steward Thiam (entering first and immobilising the hijacker) poured boiling water from the coffee machine on him and beat him until they considered him sufficiently subdued. The hijacker was tied with life-jacket straps and handed over to the Guardia Civil. About twenty passengers were slightly injured when evacuating from the port aft escape slide.
Read more about this topic: Air Mauritanie
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