BOGOTA, Colombia: The Colombian Government questioned its own airline security measures and ordered an immediate review after a father in a wheelchair dodged a security check to sneak hand grenades onto a plane and hijacked it along with his son.
The father and son finally surrendered five hours after commandeering the Aires airliner around midday on Monday (local time) after it departed from the southern city of Florencia, on a flight headed to Colombia's capital, Bogota.
The plane, with at least 24 people aboard including an American landed in Bogota after the hijackers made a radio call to air traffic control indicating they had taken control, said General Edgar Lesmez, chief of the Colombian Air Force.
The hijackers allowed government negotiators and a Roman Catholic priest to board while the twin-propeller plane sat on the tarmac. All passengers and crew were eventually freed unharmed before the hijackers, 42-year-old Porfirio Ramirez and his 22-year-old son, Linsen Ramirez, gave up and were arrested.
The older Ramirez boarded the plane in a wheelchair that was too large to pass through an airport metal detector, and he was not frisked by security agents, Luis Octavio Rojas, director of the Florencia airport, said.
President demands investigation
A statement late on Monday from President Alvaro Uribe's office said the Civil Aviation authority must find out "what allowed someone to take advantage of his disabled condition to pass through the security checks at the Florencia airport with grenades."
Ramirez boarded with two grenades, officials close to the investigation said.
Uribe's office added: "Remember that nobody is exempt or excluded from security controls at airports."
Rojas acknowledged his airport security agents only gave the elder Ramirez "a visual inspection."
According to the government statement, the elder hijacker said he hijacked the plane to bring attention to a case in which he was partially paralyzed by a police bullet during a raid on his house some 14 years ago. He had unsuccessfully sought government compensation.
Senator Carlos Moreno, who helped negotiate the standoff, said a US$43,000 check was handed to the hijackers as part of a "deal" between the government and the hijackers, but the government would not honour it.
No concessions were ever made to the hijackers, the government said.
Attorney General Mario Iguaran said the elder Ramirez led the hijacking and if convicted faces 25 to 40 years in prison for aggravated hijacking of an aircraft.
The elder Ramirez, speaking to reporters before being transferred to a jail cell, said he has "no reason to regret" his actions on Monday and said that during the negotiation the government "said they would help me" and that they "would give me an indemnity, because that's what I need."
The government said on Monday it plans to review his request for compensation, but said this would not affect the severe charges he faces.
The hijacking marked the second time an Aires flight from Florencia to Bogota has been hijacked.
In February 2002, members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, hijacked an Aires flight, forced it to land on a rural highway and kidnapped a Colombian senator who was aboard. Senator Jorge Gechen Turbay, president of the Colombian Senate's peace commission, remains a FARC hostage. The other passengers and the crew were left with the plane in that case.
(China Daily 09/14/2005 page7)
