M A I N   N E W S

Hijack: from panic to hoax
Tribune News Service

Civil Aviation Minister Shahnawaz Hussain along with Civil Aviation Secretary A H Jung addressing the media in New Delhi on Thursday morning, detailing the hijack drama. Passengers surrounded by mediapersons after they disembarked from the Alliance Air flight in New Delhi on Thursday morning. Ambulances wait outside Palam airport during the hijacking hoax. —PTI photos

New Delhi, October 4
There was confusion and some anxious moments at the Delhi Airport early this morning as relatives of the passengers CD 7444 flight of Alliance air waited for concrete information whether the plane was actually hijacked or the four-hour drama was just a hoax or mock exercise.

With memories of the hijack of an Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar still fresh and tight security in the region, the relatives accosted airline officials to get details, but in vain. Some of the relatives alleged that the officials were equally ignorant about the facts. The passengers of the flight which originated in Mumbai were also ignorant of the developments inside the aircraft after it landed at the Delhi airport early this morning.

While some passengers were convinced that the hijacking and the hijackers was a reality overpowered by the commandos of the National Security Guards (NSG) who stormed the plane subsequently, others dismissed it as a mock exercise. When questioned by newsmen, some of the passengers at the airport claimed that they just “had fun and watched the developments from their seats”. However, most of them could not recall the sequence of events of the drama inside the plane.

Outside hectic activity was on with armed policemen ringing the airport and emergency vehicles, including fire engines positioned near the aircraft taxied to an isolated bay at the airport. “These are all a part of emergency drill” said a senior airport police officer.

According to official version, the flight that was on its way from Mumbai at 11.45 p.m. was declared hijacked over Ahmedabad and landed shortly before 1 a.m. amidst full security and emergency drill at Delhi airport. The call was made to the ATC in Ahmedabad that the flight had been hijacked by two armed men.

Soon after the information of hijacking was received by authorities, central government’s Crisis Management Group (CMG) assembled under the Chairmanship of Home Minister L.K. Advani at 2.15 a.m. in Delhi. Civil Aviation Minister, Shahnawaz Hussain, National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, Foreign Secretary Chokila Iyer and Defence and Home Secretaries and top intelligence officers reached to attend the meeting.

While the meeting was on, it was discovered that it was all drama. There had been a communication lapse the Air Traffic Controller at Ahmedabad and the pilot of the flight CD 7444 of Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Indian Airlines.

Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee had been up till 4 a.m. in monitoring the situation with ministers and officials in a hijack drill.

Mr Shahnawaz Hussain promised an inquiry into the entire episode but drew satisfaction from the fact that system had been quickly activated as in the case of an emergency.

Probe panel

The government today set up a high-level committee headed by Director-General Civil Aviation H.S. Khola to go into the “hijack” of the Mumbai-Delhi Alliance Air flight last night which began with a call to the carrier’s office here at 11.22 a.m. that it is going to be commandeered “soon”. The probe committee will have representatives of the Home Ministry and Hassan Ghafoor, Director Security, Air India and submit report to the government within one week. PTI

 150 sky marshals deployed
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 4
Even as last night’s hijack drama of an Alliance Air flight has left several questions unanswered, the Centre is understood to have already deployed over 150 sky marshals in several sensitive and hypersensitive domestic and international routes.

“A pool of over 150 sky marshals have been created and the marshals are deployed at random on flights in coordination with the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security,” a top Home Ministry official told TNS this evening.

Conceding that even deployment of sky marshals could not be a foolproof measure, he said the effort basically was to eliminate as many possibilities of hijacking as possible.

Plane hijack or not — some questions
Girja Shankar Kaura
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 4
Contrary to the claims of Civil Aviation Minister Shanawaz Hussain that the “false alarm” over the hijack of an Alliance Airplane late last night had helped to test security arrangements in such situations some vital questions have arisen which point out that all agencies involved were again caught off guard.

Despite all hype over increased security at the airports and at the entry points of the aircraft after the September 11 terrorist attacks, all agencies involved clearly seemed to have been taken by surprise by this late night drama. As in the Kandahar incident there was confusion among the senior security and civil aviation officials and there was no clarity which path to follow.

The incident again reflects lack of coordination and communication among various agencies. And most importantly the inability of the ground officials to assess the situation correctly and to be able to get right information and plan accordingly.

There is no explanation as to why the Prime Minister, National Security Adviser and senior Foreign, Defence and Home Ministry officials were on tenterhooks throughout the night when there was no hijack or hijackers. For four hours there was no communication on whether there were any hijackers in the plane or not.

There was no alternative communication established with the plane once it was isolated at one of the bays on the IGI Airport. The security agencies could not ascertain the correct status of the aircraft and did not think of an alternative but to storm it.

The officials made no attempt to verify as to who made the initial call to the Ahmedabad ATC and subsequently why the pilots had not given the correct picture to the ATC Delhi when the plane entered the air space over the national Capital. Why they chose not to maintain communication with the ATC? Did they switch off the communication network?

Despite some of the passengers being in touch with their relatives and even reporters, telling them that everything was normal, the agencies chose to carry out the full drill. They later denied that it was a mock exercise. If not then why the storming of the plane without ascertaining the situation?

Experts were of the opinion that the security agencies and the officials did not display the nerve required to handle such situations. This was also evident from the fact that while the Civil Aviation Minister said that he had no information regarding NSG commandos having seized two knife-wielding passengers, Secretary Civil Aviation A.H. Jung said that there were “two hijackers” who spoke “little English”.

There was further confusion and discrepancy as the authorities here said that there were no arrests and reports said that one person had actually been detained.