Two would-be plane hijackers were beaten to death by passengers and crew aboard a flight bound for the regional Chinese capital of Urumqi on Friday, The Global Times reports. The men died in the hospital from the injuries they suffered at the hands of these whom they believed would be their victims.
There had been a total of six males involved in the foiled plot to hijack the Tianjin Airlines flight. All of the males were reportedly Uyghurs, a nearby Muslim ethnic minority.
Much less than 10 minutes after the plane took off from Hotan airport in southwest Xinjiang, China at 12:25 a.m., the males, aged 20 to 36, announced their intentions to horrified passengers and attempted to storm the cockpit employing a “broken crutch” made of aluminum as a weapon.
But ahead of they could get to the cockpit, they had been tackled by passengers and crew members who tied them up with belts and restrained them till the plane made it back to the airport about 20 minutes later. There were reportedly 92 passengers and 9 crew members on the flight.
“All six of the hijackers had been ethnically Uyghur, and they tried to break into the cockpit employing a broken crutch as a weapon, but had been overpowered by passengers and crew,” Hou Hanmin, chief of the regional information office, confirmed to the International Times.
Sources and more information:
• Crew and passengers of Xinjiang flight recall hijacking experience
Passengers and crew members who foiled a hijacking attempt Friday over northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region were honored for their bravery and calmness by regional authorities in Urumqi on Monday. They recalled the terrifying experience when six assailants allegedly tried to hijack the plane bound for the Xinjiang capital Urumqi.
• Two Men Who Reportedly Tried To Hijack A Chinese Plane Were Beaten To Death By Passengers
Two men who reportedly tried to hijack a plane in the Chinese region of Xinjiang on Friday have died in hospital, the Global Times reports. The two died from “injuries received in a fight with passengers and crew during the attempted hijacking of a Tianjin Airlines’ flight”, the state newspaper reported Sunday.