[Deepblue]

LAS PALMAS, Spain (CNN) -- A man armed with two pistols hijacked an Air Mauritania flight Thursday but was subdued by two passengers, a Spanish official said.

The plane landed safely in the Canary Islands and no one was hurt, the official said.

The senior Spanish government source said a man had been trying to commandeer the Boeing 737 to Paris. He was arrested by the civil guard after the jet landed at Gando Airport, the source told CNN.

Jose Segura, the central government's chief representative in the Canaries, told Ser, a Spanish radio station, that the plane was carrying 71 passengers and eight crew members.

Reports differed on the hijacker's nationality, with one senior Spanish government source saying he is Moroccan and Segura describing him as Mauritanian.

Abass Bass, a representative of the Mauritanian Embassy in Washington, described the incident as a "tentative hijacking."

"The information we had from Mauritania is that the passengers fought back and they took the hijacker and now everything is OK," Bass told CNN.

Bass said the flight had been scheduled to be an interior one, from the capital city of Nouakchott to Nouadhibou, in northern Mauritania, near Morocco.

How they did it:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17183946/

A fast-thinking pilot with passengers in cahoots fooled a gunman who had hijacked a jetliner flying from Africa to the Canary Islands, braking hard upon landing then quickly accelerating to knock the man down so travelers could pounce on him, Spanish officials said Friday.

Along the way, speaking to the hijacker, the pilot realized the man did not speak French. So he used the plane's public address system to warn the passengers in French of the ploy he was going to try: brake hard upon landing, then speed up abruptly. The idea was to catch the hijacker off balance, and have crew members and men sitting in the front rows of the plane jump him, the Spanish official said.

The pilot also warned women and children to move to the back of the plane in preparation for the subterfuge, the official said.

It worked. The man was standing in the middle aisle when the pilot carried out his maneuver, and he fell to the floor, dropping one of his two 7 mm pistols. Flight attendants then threw boiling water from a coffee machine in his face and at his chest, and some 10 people jumped on the man and beat him, the Spanish official said.

Around 20 people were slightly injured when the plane braked suddenly, the official said.

The hijacker was arrested by Spanish police who boarded the plane after it landed at Gando airport, outside Las Palmas.

Air Mauritania identified the heroic pilot as Ahmedou Mohamed Lemine, a 20-year-veteran of the company.

 

[aldo_14]

i'm quite impressed they let the hijacker out alive...

[karajorma]

and some 10 people jumped on the man and beat him,

I've said it before. After 9/11 you've got to be a ****ing idiot to think you can successfully hijack a plane. The passengers will beat the **** out of you first chance they get if you try cause most of them will get a "Well we're dead anyway" attitude about it.

[vyper]

Hehe, hijack n00b.

[Ford Prefect]

omfg l2hijack nub

[Charismatic]

Way too go. The plane is stopping and speeding up, yet they manage to throw boiling water directly on his face\chest. Nice aim.

And  @ Kara: True. The Hijacker should be more afraid then the passengers.

@Aldo: People are afraid to kill someone else nowadays, we are too civilized.

And no one mentiones hoe he got 2 pilstols on their friggin plane? Not one but two, and he managed to shoot nobody? What a noob. If i was doing that, and was probably going to go to jail for a long time, id atleast let my guns off in the croud before i go.

And what was he expecting to do? Walk out of the plane without getting caught? Dumbass. Its a dead end crime, unless you want to kamakazie like terrorists, thus, no landing and getting out without getting caught.

[Taristin]

@Aldo: People are afraid to kill someone else nowadays, we are too civilized.

Lies.

[karajorma]

Apparently he was doing it to get political asylum in France. Why the **** he didn't just buy a bloody plane ticket to France from the Canary Islands instead is beyond me.

[redsniper]

He was broke?

[aldo_14]

@Aldo: People are afraid to kill someone else nowadays, we are too civilized.

My arse.

[vyper]

Apparently he was doing it to get political asylum in France. Why the **** he didn't just buy a bloody plane ticket to France from the Canary Islands instead is beyond me.

The better question being why one would want to leave Tenerife?

[Kie99]

Flight attendants then threw boiling water from a coffee machine in his face and at his chest, and some 10 people jumped on the man and beat him

Pwn't nub.

If he didn't speak French why pick France as a destination for political asylum?  Surely he could have asked for it some place else.

[MatthewPapa]

i hope passengers learn fight back more in the future just like this

it will make terrorists think twice about hijacking airplanes

[Polpolion]

People are afraid to kill someone else nowadays, we are too civilized.

id atleast let my guns off in the croud before i go.

[Sandwich]

i hope passengers learn fight back more in the future just like this

it will make terrorists think twice about hijacking airplanes

Wish the justice systems of the world would take such an attitude to rapists, murderers, and similar scum. Have the rape victims (or a family member) castrate the rapist. That kind of stuff. It's not just about justice being done to the evildoers, it's about the justice done to them being an example to other potential evildoers, to make them think twice.

[WeatherOp]

i hope passengers learn fight back more in the future just like this

it will make terrorists think twice about hijacking airplanes

Wish the justice systems of the world would take such an attitude to rapists, murderers, and similar scum. Have the rape victims (or a family member) castrate the rapist. That kind of stuff. It's not just about justice being done to the evildoers, it's about the justice done to them being an example to other potential evildoers, to make them think twice.

*imagines a man trying to grab this huge woman who picks him by the neck and pulls scissors out of her purse. 

[aldo_14]

i hope passengers learn fight back more in the future just like this

it will make terrorists think twice about hijacking airplanes

Wish the justice systems of the world would take such an attitude to rapists, murderers, and similar scum. Have the rape victims (or a family member) castrate the rapist. That kind of stuff. It's not just about justice being done to the evildoers, it's about the justice done to them being an example to other potential evildoers, to make them think twice.

Isn't that more along the lines of revenge rather than justice?

[Scuddie]

Justice and what's just are two entirely different things.  Revenge cannot be compared against Justice.

[jr2]

..very true.. but justice isn't letting a multiple-murderer / rapist / whatever other scumbucket you can think of live in comfort @ taxpayer's expense for the rest of his life, either... I hear there are actually some criminals, who, when released, go commit another crime so they can get caught and go back, because they have it so good there...    No, I think they should be made to work @ minimum wage.  And, of course, most of that money would go to the victims or the the victims' families.  And, if he was a real remorseless cold blooded killer (or a murderer at all, for that matter), well, we do have the electric chair... 

[aldo_14]

..very true.. but justice isn't letting a multiple-murderer / rapist / whatever other scumbucket you can think of live in comfort @ taxpayer's expense for the rest of his life, either... I hear there are actually some criminals, who, when released, go commit another crime so they can get caught and go back, because they have it so good there...    No, I think they should be made to work @ minimum wage.  And, of course, most of that money would go to the victims or the the victims' families.  And, if he was a real remorseless cold blooded killer (or a murderer at all, for that matter), well, we do have the electric chair... 

Firstly, I don't think you could honestly describe prison as 'comfort' for 99% of people, especially not those faced with the best part of a lifetime behind bars (although it is also possible that those who are not adjusted or rehabilitated properly may see jail as easier than facing the real world).

Secondly, and more importantly, justice is not blind nor infallible.  To inflict permanent physical injury or death and still claim to be morally right - if inflicting these things can ever be (after all, a murder trial generally wouldn't consider whether the victim was 'asking for it') - IMHO requires a level of security against miscarriages of justice that goes beyond the capacity of a human judge or jury.  The US in particular has many well documented cases of wrongful execution, and I don't think the cost of even one innocent life is acceptable in persuing a 'cheap' option of killing rather than imprisoning.