Passengers dis-embarking hijacked aircraft
The 31-year old Ethiopian Airlines co-pilot who hijacked a Boeing 767-300 aircraft flying from Addis Ababa to Rome has been arrested and is seeking asylum in Geneva, Switzerland. The hijacker fears he will be persecuted in Ethiopia.
The un-armed hijacker took control of the aircraft when the pilot went to the toilet and locked himself in the cockpit. He asked to refuel at Geneva, landed the plane, climbed down from the cockpit window using a rope (available in the cockpit), and gave himself up to police.
The situation on the aircraft which had 202 passengers and crew members, remained calm throughout - as the co-pilot himself alerted the authorities to the plane's hijacking while passengers on the plane were unaware it had been hijacked.
Flight 702 was scheduled to leave the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, at 00:30 local time (21:30 GMT), and arrive in Rome at 04:40 local time. It made an unscheduled landing in Geneva at 06:00
On 23 November 1996, an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767-200ER Flight 961 en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi on a Bombay-Addis Ababa-Nairobi-Brazzaville-Lagos-Abidjan service was hijacked by three Ethiopians seeking asylum in Australia. The aircraft crash-landed in the Indian Ocean when it ran out of fuel killing 125 of the 175 passengers, hijackers and crew on board. The rest survived with injuries. At the time, it was the deadliest hijacking involving a single aircraft - until the 11 September 2001 terror attacks in the United States of America.
Ethiopian Airlines, which has been running for almost 68 years, is one of Africa's best performing airlines. At a time when many airlines around the world have reported reduced profit margins or losses, Ethiopian Airlines reported $143m operating profits in the last financial year. It unveiled its Dreamliner 787 recently.