Bangladeshi hijacker shot dead after emergency landing

A man who attempted to hijack a passenger plane carrying 156 passengers and crew using a toy gun has been shot dead by Bangladeshi commandos.

“We tried to arrest him or get him to surrender but he refused and then we shot him,” said Major General S M Motiur Rahman of the Bangladesh Army.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines Flight BG 147 had been traveling to Dubai from Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, with a scheduled stopover in the city of Chittagong, Sunday evening.

During the initial 25-minute flight, when the plane was at an altitude of 15,000 feet (4,572 meters), the unnamed suspect took at least two members of the crew hostage using a toy gun and demanded to speak with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The man’s threat to blow up the plane, which was on its way to Dubai from Dhaka via Chittagong, led its pilots to make an emergency landing.

Before the commandos moved in, all 142 passengers and most of the crew had been let off the aircraft unharmed. One crew member had been held hostage, the officials said.

Air Vice Marshal Nayeem Hasan, chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh, told reporters at a news conference that as well as holding what appeared to be a pistol the passenger said he had explosives bound to his body.

With the plane close to Chittagong after leaving Dhaka, the passenger stood up from his seat and tried to go to the cockpit, according to aviation officials. When a member of the crew blocked his way, he showed his pistol.

He then said he had explosives and if they didn’t open the door of the cockpit he would blow up the plane, officials said. Other members of the crew alerted the pilots to the problem and they asked air traffic control for an emergency landing.

The man appeared to be in his 20s and was probably Bangladeshi as he was speaking Bangla, but his identity was not yet clear, Hasan said.