IamA passenger on yesterday's Hijacked plane from

4037

I’m a male, 25 Years old, I was in transit at Addis Adaba for flight ET702.

News coverage on Yahoo

Proof: Luggage tag.

The plane was hijacked one hour after take-off. This is how it went down.

After entering the plane, I went to my seat: economy class, window-side and next to the right wing. As it was around midnight, I quickly fell asleep during take-off. I was waken up an hour later due to the sound of all the oxygen mask going down. I immediatly thought « what the... » I looked at my neighbor, she seemed as confused at me: the plane was not behaving oddly so I thought it was a simple technical glitch or somebody pressed the wrong button. Everybody looked at each other, thinking what’s going on. Suddenly, a deep and angry voice talked through the cabin radio: "SIT DOWN, PUT YOUR MASKS ON, I'M CUTTING THE OXYGEN", three times. At this point, I realized that the situation is serious: someone is in the pilot cabin and has hijacked the plane. Within a few seconds, the oxygen went down in the cabin: I felt very lightheaded and quickly decided to put on the oxygen mask like the rest of the passengers. Quickly after that, the plane suddenly started dropping down for about 8 seconds then went fast back up, then finally stablized. People were crying, yelling, praying. I was in complete panic. Cold. We were then waiting for an update, an information, what was going on. But it never came. We flew for 6 more hours, knowing only that a pirate was at command. Who was he, what was his intentions ? I started thinking, too far. For he was probably alone, he couldn’t possibly be planning to land at an airport, he would immediatly get caught. So I quickly took away the possibilty of landing safely. As I was looking throught the window, all I could see was dark. Dark up, dark down.

For the next 6 hours, I was imagining every possible outcome of this story : from suddenly crashing into the ocean, to hitting a building, to crashing into another plane, to landing and being killed as a martyr. At this point, I remember trying to send a SMS to my family and girlfriend « There is a problem with the plane. I love you, you are the best » on a 5% battery and stressing that another terrorist would see me and shoot me. There was no network, so I decided to shut down my phone and thought of restarting it just before we crashed, so the messages would eventually come through. I held hands the whole way with my seat neighboor, a very nice, simple older italian woman. Every single second of those 6 hours of uncertainty and soon-to-be death was a psychological torture. I broke down, let everything go, said goodbye, though of my family, of moments in the past, of who will inherit my stuff and much more.

The flight was supposed to land at Rome at 4:40am. At 5:30am we were still high, high in the sky. Down throught the window , I could see a coast and some light far away that somehow reassured me. Around 5:45, the plane started suddenly to do circle. Circles left, circle right. It seemed that this went on at least 20 times. I was thinking that maybe the pirate wants to deplete the fuel and stall the plane. We were still at the same altitude, we were not going towards land. After this terribly long sequence of turns, the plane started going down towards land at a normal speed. When we reached the clouds, the wings deployed completely like a normal landing, but it seemed to me like it wanted to cover more area to do more damage. I was thinking : that’s it, we’re crashing into something. Looking down to the window I see a light, two, three, I can’t see what’s ahead. It’s still dark. We’re going fast, we’re flying over many houses now. And suddenly, under us, the airport. Just thinking again about this moment makes me shiver. We are landing. WE, are LANDING. Is this true ? Is this a miracle ? We touched the ground, and the plane eventually stopped completely in a bit away from the plane entrance to the terminal. I remember crying, while most of the people (Italians) were applauding. At this point, for the first time in 6 hours, we got an update from the steward telling us about the copilot, that we are in Geneva and that soon the Swiss police will enter and evacuate the plane. Eventually, the Swiss tactical forces entered the plane, telling is to put our hands on the head and stay calm. It took about 2-3 minutes person person to evacuate. An hour later, I was finally out. We were checked and accompagnied very kindly by the swiss. There were sandwitches, hot chocolate, free wifi and psychologues. A few hours later, I could get my luggage and went out through normal gates. My mother was there, we went for a walk along the Leman lake and she cooked some good meal. The psychological impact is not negligible, I'm still in a state of shock. I'm a lucky bastard, I hope none of you have to experience that. AMA.

tl;dr: Got to plane, after an hour the oxygen mask went down, scary voice through radio, plane going fast up and fast down, no update during 6 hours and finally landed safely. Miracle.

Edit: English Grammar / Added News Article

Edit: Why was my mother in Geneva? My final destination was Geneva, I work there. I had a flight from Rome to Geneva just after this one. As I was coming back from holidays, she had long planned on taking her days off to visit her friends in my hometown (1 hour away, France) and by the same occasion, visit me. In the end, I am very thankful and lucky to have her outside of the airport when I came out.

Edit: Honestly and truly thank you to everybody on this thread.

Edit: Thank you kind person for the Gold! I will treasure it.

Edit: I'm taking a break to eat a Swiss Fondue. Thank you everyone so much for your question and support. Sorry for all the questions I didn't answer. Stay classy reddit, let's learn from this story and make the world a better place.

Edit: Good night reddit, will continue answering tommorow!

Edit: Sorry about the martyr part, I should have researched the meaning more before talking about it.

Edit: As a redditor pointed, the oxygen didn't went down in the cabin, it could only be the pressure. It is even likely than nothing happened and I felt lightheaded because of the panic.

Edit: I feel like I didn't emphasize on how the Ethiopian Airlines flight attendants were reassuring, professional and very helpful. Big thanks to them.

Comments: 5057 • Responses: 47 • Date: 2014-02-18 14:20:44 UTCsource

noslipcondition3885 karma2014-02-18 15:10:43 UTC

Just so everybody knows, the pilot can't just "turn the oxygen off to the cabin." The cabin air isn't anything more than outside air that has been filtered. It is pulled into the aircraft through a bleed system in the jet engines. There is no supplemental oxygen in the cabin air supply to turn off. It's just plain air.

What the captain could do is depressurize the cabin, which would make breathing difficult or impossible, forcing people to use the supplemental oxygen masks. But that would be a dangerous move for other reasons.

More info here.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_control_system_(aircraft)

Threatening to "turn the oxygen off" was most likely a scare tactic to keep everybody under control. If you think you need to breath from the mask, you can't leave your seat because that's where the mask is. A really clever way to keep people from storming the cockpit.

Edit: If, for some reason, you are ever in a situation where you are on an airplane that has depressurized and you need to move away from your seat (possibly to regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers,) the flight attendants have portable oxygen masks with tanks so they can walk around the cabin. They are usually in the rear most overhead bins near the first aid kits.

Source: I'm a pilot.

IamA passenger on yesterday's Hijacked plane from Ethiopian Airlines to Geneva. Contrary to news coverage, it was hell. AMA!