A Somali immigrant tried to hijack a New Zealand domestic flight yesterday, stabbing both pilots, threatening to blow up the twin-propeller plane and demanding that it fly to Australia before she was subdued, police said.
The wounded pilots were able to land the plane safety in Christchurch, a popular tourist city, where police and emergency crews rushed onto the tarmac to arrest the suspect, evacuate the six other passengers and search the plane for bombs.
The airport was closed for about three hours. No bombs were found aboard the plane.
The pilot suffered a severely cut hand in the attack and the co-pilot was injured on the foot, Christchurch police Commander Dave Cliff said.
One passenger suffered a minor hand injury caused by the attacker, Cliff said. He did not explain how the woman was subdued.
Air New Zealand, the national carrier which operated the flight through a charter company, said it was reviewing security measures nationally following the incident. In New Zealand, passengers and their luggage on short-haul flights are not subject to security checks.
Cliff said the 33-year-old woman attacked the pilots about 10 minutes into the flight from the city of Blenheim, 70km south of Wellington, to Christchurch, about 350 km south of the capital.
After the woman was subdued on board, the pilots made emergency radio calls reporting that she said there were two bombs on the plane, Cliff said.
Army and police bomb squads later searched the plane and the luggage, but found no explosives.
The woman demanded to be flown to Australia, a destination beyond the Jetstream aircraft's range, Cliff said.
The woman, who was not identified by name, was a Blenheim resident, he said.
She was charged with attempted hijacking, wounding and other offenses and was to appear in court in Christchurch today, police said.
The passengers included four New Zealanders, an Australian and an Indian national.
"Today's incident, although a one-off, has naturally given us cause to conduct a thorough review of our safety and security systems and processes on regional domestic flights," said Bruce Parton, Air New Zealand's general manager of short-haul airlines.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
ROYAL TARGET: After Prince Andrew lost much of his income due to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, he became vulnerable to foreign agents, an author said British lawmakers failed to act on advice to tighten security laws that could have prevented an alleged Chinese spy from targeting Britain’s Prince Andrew, a former attorney general has said. Dominic Grieve, a former lawmaker who chaired the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) until 2019, said ministers were advised five years ago to introduce laws to criminalize foreign agents, but failed to do so. Similar laws exist in the US and Australia. “We remain without an important weapon in our armory,” Grieve said. “We asked for [this law] in the context of the Russia inquiry report” — which accused the government
RSS