Passengers on Hijacked Turkish Plane Escape

The drama of this story, a Turkish passenger plane carrying 136 passengers hijacked by Islamists, is the fact that the ordeal ended after the pilots and most pf the passengers took action and escaped. You wouldn’t know that, however, based on most of the coverage, which states, almost uniformly, that Islamists “released” the passengers and the situation ended “peacefully.”

I must also say, despite my disgust for the paper in general, only the New York Times devoted a proper headline to the truth of the passengers’ heroism, and the overall story of the people taking control of their own fate, refusing to allow beasts to have their way. While I will stick to my refusal to link to the NYT, any internet search will bring you their coverage as well as the rest of the world’s whitewash of what actually transpired. I’ve linked here to one of the few outlets with the passenger revolt story. Their description of the hijackers is in dispute. Here they’re described as Iranian, Other coverages indicates on was Turkish and the other was a so-called Palestinian. Both spoke in Arabic throughout the hijacking.

Turkish plane hijacked, passengers escape

Passengers aboard a hijacked Turkish plane managed to jump to safety when hijackers forced the plane to land in southern Turkish city of Antalya, officials said on Saturday.

Most of the 136 passengers and six crew on board managed to escape the plane by breaking the rear door and emergency exits of the plane after the pilots landed the plane on the grounds that they needed to refuel…

A passenger aboard the Atlasjet flight told NTV Television that the two hijackers first tried to breakdown the door to the pilots cabin but failed. “They claimed to have bombs,” he stated.

Another passenger said the hijackers stated “we’re Muslims” and then after promising not to harm the passengers agreed to let the women and children go, but video from NTV Television shows the passengers jumping from the rear of the plane after one man got up and broke down the rear emergency exit when all of the passengers began streaming out of the back and the pilots crawled out of the cockpit side windows.

There has been a rash of hijackings of Turkish airliners, including three since 9/11 despite increased international security. As we know, Islamists having control of an airliner is the equivalent of monsters flying a massive cruise missile around. The passengers and pilots being proactive here very possibly saved their lives, and the lives of countless others.