Panic as man storms cockpit of Nairobi-bound jet

NAIROBI, Kenya -- A British Airways plane nose-dived twice during a flight to Kenya after a passenger broke into the cockpit and grabbed the controls.

The man, described by passengers as strong and hysterical, was wrestled to the floor by crew and passengers.

He had disengaged the autopilot on the Boeing 747-400, causing the jet to lurch violently before the crew could regain control, passengers said. The plane eventually landed safely in Nairobi at 10.10 a.m. local time and the man was arrested.

Jemima Khan, wife of former Pakistan cricketer Imran Khan, was among the 379 passengers.

QUOTE "Every single person on that airplane was absolutely terrified, there were grown men screaming, people praying aloud." Benjamin Goldsmith     ALSO Airborne alarms

Nairobi police identified the man as a 27-year-old Kenyan and described him as "a suspected mental patient."

British Airways said: "A number of passengers are believed to have suffered relatively minor injuries as the aircraft made sudden manoeuvres during the struggle."

Captain William Hagan, 53, sustained bite wounds, the airline said.

"In the struggle the intruder bit my ear and finger but my first officer, Richard Webb, and I managed to get him out of the cockpit while my other first officer, Phil Watson, flew the aircraft.

"With the help of some passengers we managed to restrain the intruder," Hagan said in an airline statement.

Four passengers and a female member of the cabin crew were taken to a Nairobi hospital, the airline said.

An airline spokesman said the crew was "in shock" -- one is thought to have suffered a broken ankle -- and passengers making connections at Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport said they thought the plane was going to crash.

"Stuff was flying around. We thought the plane was going to fall. Some people hurt their heads," said Zoe McNaughton, a 19-year-old student from Kent, England.

Passenger Benjamin Goldsmith, who was with his sister, Jemima Khan, and mother Lady Annabel Goldsmith on the flight, told Sky News television that the man appeared hysterical.

Khan was travelling with her two children, Kasim, aged 18 months, and Sulaiman, four.

"Suddenly the plane went into this violent, violent dive, like shuddering, and went very, very steeply downwards and everyone was woken up by the screaming of grown men," Goldsmith said.

"Then the plane stopped diving and went into another dive at a really weird angle going down to the left and basically very, very steep, violent shuddering, and then the engines cut out altogether and there was total silence, apart from the noise.

"The lights went out and the oxygen masks came down and the plane sort of regained control after what must have been about 20 or 30 seconds. This was pretty serious."

He said the pilot told passengers that "a very nasty man just tried to kill us all."

"Every single person on that airplane was absolutely terrified, there were grown men screaming, people praying aloud."

After the incident the pilot spoke to his wife and other passengers, saying if it had lasted "four or five seconds more…the co-pilot wouldn't have been able to regain control because the thing was about to go on to its back," Goldsmith said.

Todd Engstrom, 41, from Portland, Oregon, was travelling to Kenya with his wife and two young daughters to do volunteer work.

He said that about two hours before landing, while most passengers were sleeping, the plane took a sudden dive.

"A breathless pilot said that a madman tried to take control of the plane and crash the plane," Angstrom said.

"He said the person had been restrained and asked for patience from us."

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

'Air rage' leads to removal of airline passengers
February 1, 1999

British Airways

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