Cancun – Aeromexico Jet Hijacked, Flown To Mexico City

UPDATE: Aeromexico Flight 576: Mexican security forces have boarded the hijacked plane and taken 5-7 suspects into custody.
Cancun – Mexican Plane Reportedly Hijacked Flown To Mexico City.

All passengers have left an AeroMexico passenger plane that was hijacked at the airport in the resort area city of Cancun and flown to the airport in the capital of Mexico City.

The hijacked plane, a Boeing 737, landed safely and is on the runway at the airport, according to Mexico’s Transport Minister Juan Molinar. Mexican security forces are at the airport.

At least three men, reportedly of Bolivian citizenship, seized control of the plane and threatened to blow it up unless they were allowed to speak to Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon, according to Web sites El Universal and Reforma.

Local television reports said that there were explosives onboard the plane.

The plane was carrying 104 passengers and was bound for Mexico City, according to Mexican network, TV Azteca.

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Yemeni Jet Crashes Near Comoros Islands – 150 Onboard

A Yemeni airliner with 150 people aboard has crashed near the Comoros Islands, an aviation official in Yemen says.

An airliner with 150 people on board belonging to Yemeni state carrier Yemenia Air crashed in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros Tuesday, a senior government official said.

“We don’t know if there are any survivors among the 150 people on the plane,” Comoros vice-president Idi Nadhoim told Reuters from the airport at the main island’s capital Moroni.

Nadhoim said the accident happened in the early hours of Tuesday, but could not give any more details.

The location was not immediately known, but a medical worker in the town of Mitsamiouli, on the main island Grande Comore, said he had been called into the local hospital.

“They have just called me to come to the hospital. They said a plane had crashed,” he told Reuters.

A Comoran police source said the plane was believed to have come down in the sea. “We really have no sea rescue capabilities,” he added.

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Pilots Landing at Seattle-Tacoma Airport Report Lasers

Pilots on 12 jetliners landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Sunday reported that someone was shining a green laser light into their cockpits, bringing renewed attention to a problem that has plagued pilots since the introduction of cheap laser pointers several years ago.

All the planes were targeted during a 20-minute period Sunday night, and all landed safely. But the incident led to pilots simultaneously trying to avoid being temporarily blinded by the light while trying to help authorities pinpoint its source, believed to be about a mile north of the airport.

Air traffic controllers continuously cautioned pilots about the light during the episode, which lasted from 7:10 to 7:30 p.m. PT.

“All right, I’ll keep an eye out for that,” one pilot responded before correcting himself. “Er, I’ll keep an eye away from that,” he said in radio traffic captured by LiveATC.net.

Another pilot reported the source to be a block and a half west of an interstate. Airport authorities said they conducted two searches of the area but did not find the culprit.

Laser attacks on aircraft have increased in recent years, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. There have been 148 incidents this year, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said.

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9 Muslim Passengers Removed From Jet – Reagan Intl. Airport

Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark.

Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI.

Kashif Irfan, one of the removed passengers, said the incident began about 1 p.m. after his brother, Atif, and his brother’s wife wondered aloud about the safest place to sit on an airplane.

A source close to the investigation says Sobia was overheard talking about the safest place to sit on a plane if a bomb was on board.  An Airtran spokesman says what was allegedly heard by other passengers was enough to remove the entire Irfan family from the plane.

9 Muslim Passengers Removed From Jet – washingtonpost.com.

Official – Saudi Arabia Prevented US Terror Attack In 2003

Saudi Arabia foiled a terror attack against the United States five years ago, a Saudi official said Sunday.

The official said the 2003 plot, which was first reported Sunday in Al-Watan newspaper, was one of 160 foiled terror plots the kingdom announced last month that it had foiled. At the time, authorities provided no details about the alleged plots.

It was unclear why Saudi authorities never publicly revealed the alleged 2003 plot previously and why it first surfaced in Al-Watan, which is government guided, on Sunday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the 2003 plot involved militants who planned to hijack a plane and blow it up over a densely populated city in the United States.

The militants planned to transit through the U.S. to another destination, according to the official. That way, they could avoid applying for the hard-to-get U.S. visas, a requirement for Saudis, the official added.

The official said the militants were preparing to execute the alleged plot when it was halted.

The official would not provide more details about the alleged plot including what city the militants planned to target and whether any arrests were made.

Over the past few years, the Interior Ministry has said the militants it has arrested had been planning to carry out attacks inside and outside the kingdom.

The issue of al Qaeda operatives in the kingdom has been in the news recently following Interior Minister Prince Nayef’s announcement last month that authorities indicted 991 suspected militants on charges that they participated in terrorist attacks carried out in Saudi Arabia over the last five years.

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