Weird....He was in the air circling for two hrs.....wonder why they wouldn't just vapourize him.
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Man Arrested After Stealing German Plane
By DAVID McHUGH 01/05/2003 12:00:59 EST
Police arrested a man who stole a small plane Sunday and threatened to crash it into
the European Central Bank in Frankfurt before landing safely at the city's international
airport, authorities said.
Military jets had been scrambled after the single-engine plane began circling slowly
over the center of the city, its red and white lights blinking in the darkness several
hundred meters above the skyscrapers in Germany's financial capital.
Earlier, in a call from his plane to news channel n-tv, the man had said he didn't want
to harm anyone, but intended to commit suicide once his fuel ran out. But after just
over two hours in the air, he put the plane down at the airport.
N-tv said the man had said he wanted to draw attention to the death of an astronaut
killed aboard the doomed space shuttle Challenger in 1986.
Police said that the man had threatened to fly the plane into the ECB or other
buildings in the downtown area.
The main railway station and several skyscrapers were evacuated temporarily as a
precaution, and streets cleared in the downtown area of the city.
Bank spokeswoman Regina Schueller said security personnel evacuated about 10
staff from their offices. The bank's president Wim Duisenberg was not in the building at
the time.
Police sent up a helicopter to try to force the plane away from the city, while two
military jets were seen roaring across the evening sky. It was unclear if the pilot had
been forced to land, or talked down. The airport said air traffic controllers had been in
contact with the pilot.
The plane was stolen Sunday afternoon from an airfield at Babenhausen, just to the
southeast of Frankfurt, said Axel Raab, a spokesman for the German air safety
agency. The man threatened the pilot of the plane with a weapon, then took over the
controls and took off, Raab said.
Frankfurt airport, continental Europe's largest, interrupted flights while the stolen plane
was in the air, but resumed takeoffs and landings minutes after he landed at 5:11 p.m.
local time. |
