Ethiopian co-pilot hijacks plane to seek Swiss asylum

The co-pilot of an Ethiopian Airlines plane hijacked his aircraft Monday and forced it to land in Geneva so he could seek asylum, igniting what one passenger described as "pure fear".

The Ethiopian locked himself in the cockpit when the captain went to the bathroom during flight ET-702 from Addis Ababa, which had been due to fly to Rome.

He was swiftly arrested in Geneva after scaling down a rope out of the cockpit window and prosecutors said the chances of his demands being met were slim.

"We thought the co-pilot had gone mad," Francesco Cuomo, a 25-year-old development economist who was on board, was quoted by Italian media as saying.

"The captain was threatening to open the cockpit door and tried to break it down without success. That's when we understood that something serious was going on.

"When we started circling over Geneva, there were moments of pure fear," he said.

After landing in Rome from Geneva, another passenger, Diego Gardelli, said the passengers did not realise they had been hijacked until the captain told them after landing. They thought there had been a technical problem.

"We thought we were going to plunge into the sea," he said, adding that passengers were also told to wear oxygen masks for half an hour during the flight.

"We feared the worst," said Elda, a 75-year-old passenger, adding that passengers were frisked one by one after coming off the plane "because they thought there could be accomplices".

In an audio recording on Italian media websites, a voice said to be the captain could be heard trying to reassure passengers once they were on the ground.

"The pilot is still locked inside the cockpit but he is not armed," the man was heard saying.

"He threatened to crash the plane. I don't know his motives and I'm not interested. All I'm interested in is the fact that you're safe," he said.

In a smartphone video, passengers could also be seen with their hands behind their heads as a police announcement is heard over the loudspeakers repeating: "This is a police operation. Do not move!"

Addis Ababa identified the hijacker as 31-year-old Hailemedehin Abera Tagegn, who had been working for the airline for five years.

It was unclear why he felt the need to seek asylum, but Geneva's chief prosecutor Olivier Jornot said his chances were "not very high."

Ethiopian Information Minister Redwan Hussein said that as far as it was known, Tagegn was "medically sane."

"We don't see any criminal record... and there was no reason for him to be prosecuted so there was no reason for him to flee," he added.

Tagegn risks a 20-year prison sentence.

A total of 202 passengers and crew were on board the Boeing 767 as the drama unfolded.

Head of operations at Geneva airport, Xavier Wohlschlag, told the ATS news agency the hijacker's request to land was initially denied.

The green light was not given until around 5:30 am (0430 GMT), as the plane, which was first escorted by Italian fighter jets and later reportedly by French ones, circled the region.

It emerged later on Monday that no Swiss fighter jets were scrambled as the hijack happened outside the business hours of the country's air force, which operate between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm.

The plane finally landed in Geneva at 6:02 am, about an hour and a half after it was due in Rome.

"He parked the plane on the taxiway, he cut the engines then opened the cockpit window, threw out a rope and used it to descend to the tarmac," Swiss police spokesman Eric Grandjean told AFP.

"He ran towards the police and immediately identified himself as the co-pilot and hijacker."

The runway was crowded with police and other emergency vehicles as passengers filed out with their arms up in the air or on their heads before boarding waiting buses.

Flights to and from Geneva were either diverted or cancelled during the drama, but operations later resumed, said airport chief executive Robert Deillon.

Up to 30 flights and 4,000 passengers flying during the busy ski season were estimated to be affected.

In all, 14 hijackings have occurred in Switzerland since 1969, when Arab militants seized an Israeli passenger plane at Zurich airport, fatally wounding a pilot.

One hijacker died in a subsequent assault by Israeli special forces and three others were arrested.

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Disable beacons, Boeing told after Dreamliner fire probe

British authorities recommended on Thursday that distress beacons onboard all Boeing Dreamliners be disabled, after identifying the devices as the likely cause of a fire on a 787 at London's Heathrow airport.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said that detailed analysis of the Honeywell emergency location transmitter system on the new generation plane "has shown some indications of disruption to the battery cells".

"It is not clear, however, whether the combustion in the area of the ELT was initiated by a release of energy within the batteries or by an external mechanism such as an electrical short," it said.

Pending further investigations, it recommended all Honeywell transmitters be removed from the Dreamliners and urged aviation regulators to review lithium-powered devices installed in other types of aircraft.

In a statement, Boeing said it supported the recommendations, "which we think are reasonable precautionary measures to take as the investigation proceeds".

Nobody was hurt when the fire broke out last Friday on an empty Ethiopian Airlines plane parked at Heathrow airport.

But the incident was a blow to Boeing, which withdrew from service its entire fleet of Dreamliners earlier this year due to separate concerns that lithium-ion batteries on board could cause fires.

A total of 68 Dreamliners have so far been delivered, and the AAIB recommended to the US Federal Aviation Administration that the transmitter systems in all of them be disabled.

It also recommended that the FAA and other regulatory authorities "conduct a safety review of installations of lithium-powered emergency locator transmitter systems in other aircraft types and, where appropriate, initiate airworthiness action".

-- 'We are confident the 787 is safe' --

The AAIB's report does not mean the Dreamliner fleet need be grounded.

All planes carrying passengers in the United States are required to have a distress beacon, and the devices are widely used around the globe.

But under US rules, operators can fly with inoperative transmitters for up to 90 days while they await replacement or repairs. Similar regulations apply in Europe and other parts of the world.

Boeing said it was working "proactively" to respond to the recommendations, and the report did not appear to worry investors. Boeing's shares in New York gained 2.84 percent to 107.7 dollars at 1605 GMT.

"We are confident the 787 is safe and we stand behind its overall integrity," the company said.

US authority the Federal Aviation Administration later issued a statement vowing a thorough review.

"Safety is our top priority," it said. "We are currently reviewing the AAIB's report and recommendations to determine the appropriate action.

"We will work closely with the AAIB, as well as Boeing and Honeywell, as the investigation into the cause continues," it added.

Thomson Airways, the first British airline to operate the Dreamliner, said it would remove the transmitters from its aircraft but would continue operating 787 flights.

"This is not a Boeing 787 technical issue, but an ELT issue which is manufactured by Honeywell," it said in a statement.

The AAIB said Honeywell Aerospace has produced about 6,000 transmitters of the type found on the 787, and the Heathrow fire was the only incident of its kind.

The US based company, which sent experts to London following the blaze, said it would support the recommendations.

"The investigation continues, and it's premature to jump to conclusions. Temporarily addressing the ELTs on Boeing 787s as a precautionary measure is prudent," a spokesman said.

The Dreamliner, which makes extensive use of lighter, carbon-based composite materials that reduce fuel consumption, came into service in September 2011.

Boeing issued a global grounding order in January after lithium-ion batteries overheated on two different jets.

The US aviation giant has not been able to identify the root cause of the earlier problems, much to its embarrassment, but it said its modifications would prevent the problems recurring.

However, the planes have been dogged by problems since they began flying once again in April, with a string of flights worldwide cancelled or diverted due to mechanical issues.

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Honeywell beacons the culprit? Another temporary measure then, to remove the ELTs and then wait and see what happens next.

Batteries not to blame for Dreamliner jet fire

Investigators said there was no evidence to suggest that a fire on-board a Boeing 787 Dreamliner parked at London Heathrow Airport was caused by the next-generation jet's batteries.

A team from Britain's Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) was deployed following the blaze on Friday on an Ethiopian Airlines plane, which was empty at the time.

The fire is a further blow for the jet, after Boeing temporarily withdrew all Dreamliners from service earlier this year due to concerns that batteries on board could cause fires.

However, the latest incident was not down to the batteries, said the AAIB, an agency of Britain's Department of Transport ministry.

Following Saturday's first stage of its probe, the AAIB found there was "no evidence of a direct causal relationship" between the batteries and the incident at Heathrow.

"The aircraft is currently located in a hangar at London Heathrow," the it added.

"There has been extensive heat damage in the upper portion of the rear fuselage, a complex part of the aircraft, and the initial investigation is likely to take several days," it said.

"It is clear that this heat damage is remote from the area in which the aircraft main and APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) batteries are located and at this stage there is no evidence of a direct causal relationship."

Television pictures showed burn marks on the top of the plane near the back, just in front of the vertical stabiliser.

The US Federal Aviation Administration said it had also sent an official to Britain to gather facts for its own regulatory body, the US National Transportation Safety Board.

A spokesman for Ethiopian Airlines said it was investigating the incident but had no plans to ground its fleet of four 787 Dreamliners.

"Ethiopia's Dreamliners will continue to fly," Hailu Teklehaimanot told AFP in Addis Ababa.

"The incident at Heathrow is not being treated as flight-related as the incident happened after being grounded for eight hours."

A global grounding order on the Dreamliner was issued in January after lithium-ion batteries overheated on two different jets, with one of them catching fire while the aircraft was parked.

The US aviation giant has since rolled out modifications it says will ensure the planes are safe.

Boeing's shares closed 4.7 per cent lower at $101.87 in New York trading on Friday, clawing back from a dive of more than seven per cent.

Heathrow, the world's busiest international passenger airport, shut down for 90 minutes following the incident, and there were still knock-on delays on Saturday.

A spokeswoman told AFP that about 40 flights had been cancelled throughout the day, largely due to aircraft being out of place, but said delays to other flights were "minimal".

In a separate incident on Friday, a Dreamliner flying from Manchester in northwest England to Florida was forced to turn back after experiencing a "technical issue" after take-off.

It was operated by Thomson Airways, which only three days earlier had become the first British airline to fly the plane.

The Dreamliner should have entered passenger service in 2008 but it was not until October 2011 that the first commercial flight was operated by Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways.

It has been marketed as a quiet, fuel-efficient aircraft carrying between 201 and 290 passengers on medium-range routes.

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Not a direct relation to the battery but the burning spot is very near to the APU and batteries. Some food for thought here. We'll see what AAIB says after they have a conclusion with the investigations.