{"id":1349,"date":"2014-02-18T20:57:49","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T01:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.guruoftravel.com\/?p=1349"},"modified":"2014-04-28T23:30:04","modified_gmt":"2014-04-29T03:30:04","slug":"first-hand-account-ethiopian-airlines-hijacking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guruoftravel.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/18\/first-hand-account-ethiopian-airlines-hijacking\/","title":{"rendered":"First Hand Account from the Ethiopian Airlines Hijacking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Most of you have probably heard about the hijacking of the Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Rome on Sunday night.  The full news story is here<\/a>, but the general story is that the co-pilot of the flight locked the captain out of the cockpit when he got up to go to the bathroom.  The 30 year old Ethiopian co-pilot apparently “wanted asylum in Switzerland,” and circled above Geneva, Switzerland before landing.<\/p>\n

A post was made on Reddit<\/a> about 12 hours ago by a passenger who says he was on the flight and talks about the chilling details of the flight.  From his account, the passengers were completely in the dark and had no idea what was going on.  Fortunately, the flight landed safely, but it sounded like an awful ordeal:<\/p>\n

After entering the plane, I went to my seat: economy class, window-side and next to the right wing. As it was around midnight, I quickly fell asleep during take-off. I was waken up an hour later due to the sound of all the oxygen mask going down. I immediatly thought « what the… » I looked at my neighbor, she seemed as confused at me: the plane was not behaving oddly so I thought it was a simple technical glitch or somebody pressed the wrong button. Everybody looked at each other, thinking what’s going on. Suddenly, a deep and angry voice talked through the cabin radio: “SIT DOWN, PUT YOUR MASKS ON, I’M CUTTING THE OXYGEN”, three times. At this point, I realized that the situation is serious: someone is in the pilot cabin and has hijacked the plane.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read the rest of the post here<\/a>.  It’s a little surreal to read about, as the Mrs. Guru and I flew the same route – from Addis Ababa to Rome – on Ethiopian Airlines on our way back form the Seychelles<\/a> at the end of our honeymoon.  We weren’t on this exact flight (Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET702)…several Ethiopian flights leave Addis and stop in Rome to refuel en route to further destinations, so our flight simply stopped in Rome to refuel on the way back to DC.  But knowing that we only flew this route a few months ago is a bit scary.<\/p>\n\n