And yet again another attempt at the cockpit door
Sunday, November 17, 2002 a knife wielding Arab terrorist tried to
stab an El-Al flight attendant and stormed the cockpit of a jet carrying
170 passengers to Turkey.
But was foiled by quick thinking air marshals.
At one point in the terrifying mid-air drama the pilots of the Tel
Aviv - Istanbul flight alerted air traffic controllers by sending
out the coded international signal for hijacking. (CD-SAVES should
have been there)
But by the time the Boeing 757 made its scheduled landed at the Turkey
international fifteen minutes later, and Israeli-Arab with ties to
Islamic extremists-had been subdued by two security officials disguised
as passengers. The would be hijacker was believed to be sitting alone
in business class, managed to reach the locked cockpit door and tried
to kick it in. But within seconds of spotting the commotion security
guards grabbed him and through him to the floor (the passengers were
hysterical but the flight attendants calmed the passengers down.)
The attacker was identified as Tawfiq Fukra a 23-year-old Arab with
an Israeli passport.
His quote-"this day I will die".
Israeli officials were especially concerned about the security breach.
(CD-SAVES should have been there)
His attempted hijacking was especially surprising, since Israel national
airline is widely considered to have the staunchest security measures
in the world.
We will be forwarding to you shortly conclusion of CD-SAVES.
The first sign that something was wrong was a stewardess screamed.
Then the sound of the cockpit door being kicked, the sight of another
flight attendant sprinting toward the front of the plane, and finally,
a reassuring announcement, all in the space of less than one minute.
P.S. The white house concluded the latest tape from Osama Bin Laden
was authentic and that the terror master is still alive and planning
a spectacular attack on the airline industry and other worldwide targets.
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