Hijacker turns out to be army deserter
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Details have begun to emerge from yesterday's hijacking of a Turkish Airlines flight from Tirana to Istanbul, with passengers and crew describing the events leading up to the actual incident. According to reports, hijacker Hakan Ekinci knocked down a Turkish Airlines hostess who had just entered the secret code necessary to enter the airplane's cockpit cabin, entering instead in her place.
Ekinci then told the pilot that he "had friends with bombs" on the flight, and that if the pilot did not do as he said, the airplane would be destroyed. In his initial words to the pilot, Ekinci also reportedly said that he had changed his religion to Christianity, and that he wanted to fly to the Italian capital Rome to speak with the Pope. The pilot then managed to dissuade Ekinci, asserting that the flight did not have enough fuel to make it all the way to Rome.
After persuading hijacker Ekinci that the flight would not make it to Rome, the pilot landed the airplane at Italy's Brindisi air force base, where authorities surrounded the airplane, and began negotiations with Ekinci. According to reports, Ekinic's first request was that he be allowed to speak by phone with his mother, a request which was apparently turned down by his mother in Turkey, Emine Ekinci. Meanwhile, Ekinci's father, Ahmet Ekinci, told authorities in Ankara that his son had escaped from military duty in Sivas, and had wandering aimlessly in and out of Turkey ever since.