Man hijacks plane to deliver 'God's message'

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-11 07:54

MEXICO CITY: It was 1 pm when the control tower at the Mexico City airport got the first word of a bizarre drama that would play out over the next two hours: The pilot of Aeromexico Flight 576 radioed that a man aboard claimed to have a bomb and wanted to talk with President Felipe Calderon.

Man hijacks plane to deliver 'God's message'

Mexican Federal Police present to the media Jose Flores (Above), who is accused of hijacking an AeroMexico plane in Mexico City, on Wednesday. (below) Police and rescue team members prepare to storm the Boeing 737 plane in which Flores was traveling, at the international airport in Mexico City, on Wednesday. [Reuters]

Jose Flores, a 44-year-old Bolivian preacher who lives in Mexico, had gotten the word from God that he had to warn Mexicans of an impending disaster - an earthquake "like none there has ever been," he told reporters after being hustled off the plane by police without anyone being injured.

Unsuspecting passengers, including Americans and French tourists traveling from the beach resort of Cancun to Mexico City, sat not fully aware of what was happening as the pilot negotiated with Flores, bringing the plane to a smooth landing and after an hour or so of talking winning an agreement to end the standoff.

The crisis began when Flores told a flight attendant that a juice can he had was a bomb. The flight attendant notified the plane's captain over the intercom, Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna told reporters.

Flores kept the 103 passengers and crew on the tarmac for more than an hour, the plane sitting surrounded by heavily armed police at the end of a runway in an area designed for emergencies.

Pilot Ricardo Rios told the Televisa television network that Flores requested that the Boeing 737 be flown around Mexico City seven times, but there wasn't enough fuel to do that. The hijacker also asked that women reporters and Calderon be at the airport to talk to him, Rios said.

"He said he had tried to speak to the president for three months and since there hadn't been an answer he decided to use these type of threats with an airline," the pilot said.

Eventually, Flores agreed to release women and children. Minutes later, masked police stormed onto the aircraft with guns drawn and soon escorted several handcuffed men away without firing a shot.

Police later said there was only one hijacker, and the other men were briefly detained because the suspect had told a flight attendant he had three accomplices.

Flores told police his three companions were "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost".

He said he hijacked the plane after a divine revelation. Flores told authorities Wednesday's date - 9-9-09 - is the satanic number 666 turned upside down.

Speaking to reporters after he was detained, Flores said he took control of the aircraft with "a juice can ... with some little lights I attached".

"Christ is coming soon," he added, smiling.

His wife, Elizabeth Melgar, told W Radio that Flores "always told me that he was looking for a way to attract the attention of the media ... he always told me that he was waiting for a signal from God to do something."

"Don't worry if they put me in jail; (it will be) glory to God," she quoted him as saying.

The suspect's mother, Mary Pereyra de Flores, told PAT television in his native Bolivia that "I knew that my son had this revelation a year ago, I knew he was going to try to talk to the president of Mexico."

She also said she knew that the 9-9-09 date had significance. "There was a revelation for that date ... today there is a promise for the people of God and retribution for everything that the enemy has stolen," she said.

Garcia Luna said Flores is a drug addict who was convicted of armed robbery in Bolivia and has lived in Mexico for 17 years. Flores described himself as a former drug user and a pastor in southern Oaxaca state who had gone to Cancun to preach.

US, French and Mexican citizens were among the passengers, according to a US official in Washington who was briefed on the situation.

Passenger Pamela Cheatham, 48, an insurance industry employee from Colorado Springs, Colorado, is cautious about flying on "fateful" dates, but said she didn't make the connection with "9-09-09" - the number that obsessed the hijacker - until after the fact. "When I was doing my flight I was like, 'I don't want to fly on 9/11, but then it didn't hit me until this was all over," Cheatham said. "I should have evaluated that a little better."