Pilot, passengers joined to thwart hijacker

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Canary Islands (AP) -- A cunning pilot thwarted a hijacking by discreetly warning the passengers in French -- a language the gunman didn't speak -- that he would knock the attacker off-balance with a rough landing, and that they should be ready to pounce.
As Capt. Ahmedou Mohamed Lemine landed the Air Mauritania Boeing 737, he slammed on the brakes, then abruptly accelerated, throwing the hijacker to the floor, officials said Friday. The forewarned passengers and crew threw boiling water from a coffee maker on the man's face and chest, then beat him into submission.
Brandishing two 7mm pistols, the lone attacker had hijacked the Boeing 737, carrying 71 passengers and a crew of eight, shortly after it took off from the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott. The flight was headed for Gran Canaria, one of Spain's Canary Islands, with a stopover planned in Nouadhibou in northern Mauritania.
The hijacker was identified as Mohamed Abderraman, a 32-year-old Mauritanian, said an official with the Spanish Interior Ministry office on Tenerife, another of the islands in the Atlantic archipelago.
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