Plane hijacked at airport in Jamaica’s Montego Bay

By Associated Press | Monday, April 20, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Americas
<!--//Byline box end//--> <!--//article Image//-->
Photo by AP


<!--//article Image//--> <!--//article//--> KINGSTON, Jamaica — A gunman hijacked a Canadian charter plane on the tarmac near the resort city of Montego Bay and was holding the flight crew hostage, the airline said Monday. An airport spokeswoman said nobody had been injured.

The gunman boarded the plane after it arrived in Montego Bay from Halifax, Nova Scotia, according to the statement from CanJet Airlines. There were 182 passengers and crew on board the Boeing 737, but all the passengers were released, the company said.

The gunman and the crew of CanJet Flight 918 were still on board the plane early Monday, the airline said in a statement published early Monday on its Web site. Two crew members were released and five others were still on the plane, Jamaica Information Minister Daryl Vaz told CNN.

The gunman is a "mentally challenged youngster" who demanded to be flown to Cuba, Vaz said. He is about 20 years old and Jamaican, and the young man’s father was assisting with negotiations, Vaz said.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding was traveling to Montego Bay in response to the emergency, Radio Jamaica reported.

The situation began around 10 p.m. Sunday, according to Elizabeth Scotton, a spokeswoman for Montego Bay’s Sangster International Airport.
The airline said "a full security operation is under way" and it is cooperating with authorities in this Caribbean island.

Hotel arrangements were being made for the passengers, Vaz said.
The charter airline is owned by Halifax-based IMP Group Ltd., according to CanJet’s Web site.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/international/americas/view.bg?articleid=1166811

<nyt_headline version="1.0" type=" "> Hostage Standoff Ends in Jamaica </nyt_headline>

Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press
Soldiers stood near the hijacked Canjet 737 on the tarmac at the airport in Montego Bay on Monday.

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<nyt_byline version="1.0" type=" "> By IAN AUSTEN
</nyt_byline> Published: April 20, 2009
OTTAWA — The Jamaican police said Monday that they had custody of an armed man who had held a Canadian airliner and its crew hostage in Montego Bay, Jamaica on Monday, ending a 8-hour standoff in which no one was injured.
The gunman, described as a “mentally challenged youngster” of about 20 years old, had demanded to be taken to Cuba, the scheduled next stop of the flight, Daryl Vaz, the Jamaican information minister said.
“We were getting nowhere with the negotiations,” Mr. Vaz told The Associated Press. “Police and military went on the plane and captured him.”
The gunman stormed the parked airliner, CanJet Airlines Flight 918, at 10 p.m. local time Sunday, forcing his way past security checkpoints as the jet waited on the tarmac. Jamaican authorities said 159 passengers and eight crew members were aboard the jet at the time.
The passengers and two crew members were released quickly, but six crew members were held hostage until 6:40 a.m. Monday, when members of the Jamaica Defense Force Counter Terrorism Operations Group entered the cabin, the government said in a statement.
The charter flight, operated by Transat Tours, a large package holiday firm based in Montreal, had taken off from Halifax, Nova Scotia and was making a scheduled stop in Jamaica on its way to Cuba.
Relatives of passengers in Canada said that at least one shot was heard around the time the man — identified by authorities as Stephen Fray of Montego Bay — stormed the airplane, a Boeing 737-800. Several relatives of the gunman were brought to the airport to negotiate with him, authorities said.
The father of one passenger suggested in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that the man’s motives may have included robbery.
“Passengers were asked to give out all their money,” Alphonse Gosselin, whose son Christian was on board, told the broadcaster from his home in Tracadie-Sheila, New Brunswick. Mr. Gosselin said that the passengers complied but many hid their passports and credit cards.
Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, is in Jamaica on an official visit, but there was no indication that there was any link between the hostage incident and his trip.
Mr. Harper called Prime Minister Bruce Golding of Jamaica after the standoff ended and “congratulated him for the successful resolution,” his spokesman Dimitri Soudas said, news services reported.

awesome! flying in there in a couple of months

flown in and out of that airport 18 times...

hate to hear stuff like this

18 times, that's twice as many as me!

Negril > Montego Bay

letsgohoosiers said:

18 times, that's twice as many as me!

Negril > Montego Bay

Click to expand...

we go to negril for a day every time.. ricks cafe is my favorite bar in the world..

we doing negril...thought you flew into montego bay to get to negril no?

The Falls said:

we doing negril...thought you flew into montego bay to get to negril no?

Click to expand...

take a smaller plane to negril i believe