Indian cinema: Now in air

An unknown telephone hooligan has alarmed the Indian special services. Last night, just after a Boeing-737 of the Alliance Air Indian aviation company flying from Mumbai to Delhi gained height, a telephone rang at flight control in the Ahmadabad airport. Somebody reported that the plane was seized by terrorists and that all the passengers were kept prisoner. The special services of the country reacted immediately. A special encoded report came on the plane’s board that told the pilots to lock themselves up in the cockpit. As known, by International Aviation Committee’s demand, every passenger plane possesses an armoured bulkhead separating the crew from passengers. The bulkhead was battened down, and the flight was continued. Nobody was disturbing the pilots during the flight. What was happening in passenger cabin, nobody could say: of course the pilots could connect with stewardesses, though the stewardesses also could be under the terrorists’ control. At the same time, in Delhi airport, elite anti-terrorist units were deployed. Just after the airliner landed, it was blocked with lorries to prevent it from flying up. Sharpshooters hid around and elite soldiers pierced the tires of the plane. Then, the psychologists and negotiaters from the special services started to work. For a very long time, by using radio and other communication means, they were trying to find somebody in the passenger cabin who would call himself terrorist and would agree to talks. The passengers, who at first were surprised to observe the panic outside and than realized the airliner was captured (they were several times informed about it by the radio), became panic-stricken. They understood the criminals were in the cockpit. It is not clear what happened further, though the pilots who hardly could correctly evaluate the situation seem to have played the role of terrorists. They started to speak English. Actually, during all the communication sessions in the air, pilots must speak English, though they do not keep this rule. What made the pilots speak English is unknown, probably panic cries in the passenger cabin. The pilots asked two engineers to climb to the plane. The demand was carried out, while the anti-terrorist operation’s leaders decided this to be the terrorists’ demand. In Delhi, an extraordinary sitting of Cabinet of Ministers took place devoted to the plane’s capture. At the same time, the talks with the terrorists were being continued. During these talks carried out in a bad English, the “terrorists” agreed to releasing women and children. At about 4.00 a.m. (the first report about the plane’s capture arrived at midnight), four women and a child left the plane who were immediately met by psychologists and doctors. They needed about an hour to recover from the shock to answer all the question of special services. The released “hostages” told to the officers of the special services that the terrorists had barricaded themselves in the cockpit and that there were no terrorists in the cabin. The anti-terrorist operation’s leadership immediately contacted the pilots and asked them to clear up the situation. The pilots in their turn answered the terrorists were in the cabin, because cries could be heard from there. For about half an hour, more land-based services and the police were trying to clear up this unique situation. Only afterwards, the soldiers of Indian national guard entered the cabin. As it could be expected, there were no terrorists. Then the soldiers carried out the cockpit’s capture, though they did not find any terrorists there as well. People who had experienced this alleged capture, were soon rendered medical and psychological assistance and released home. The special services still cannot realize how something like this could have happened.