Plane hijacking foiled by fast-thinking pilot

A fast-thinking pilot fooled a gunman who had hijacked a plane flying from Africa to the Canary Islands.

The pilot braked hard on landing then quickly accelerated to knock the man down so travellers could pounce on him, Spanish officials said today.

The Air Mauritania Boeing 737, carrying 71 passengers and a crew of eight, was hijacked by a lone gunman brandishing two pistols yesterday evening shortly after it took off from Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, for Gran Canaria, with a planned stopover in Nouadhibou in northern Mauritania.

The hijacking alarmed Spanish officials because a trial of 29 people accused in the Madrid terrorist bombings of 2004 had begun the same day in Madrid.

But the man apparently wanted the plane to fly to France so he could request political asylum, said Mohamed Ould Mohamed Cheikh, Mauritania’s top police official.

The hijacker has been identified as Mohamed Abderraman, a 32-year-old Mauritanian, said a Spanish Interior Ministry official on Tenerife.