Angry Cypriot Passengers 'Hijack' Wayward Plane Saturday, August 26, 2000 NICOSIA, Aug 26  Angry passengers "hijacked" a Cyprus Airways plane at Athens airport in a bid to stop the Paphos-bound flight being diverted, an airline spokesman said on Saturday. The passengers surrounded the plane on the tarmac to stop it taking off and clashed with police and Greek airport officials in the early hours of Saturday, delaying the scheduled midnight flight until 5:00 a.m., the spokesman said.

The Paphos-bound passengers became angry when they were told a technical problem, which had already delayed the flight two hours, meant the plane would cancel a scheduled stop at Paphos and fly only to Larnaca, its final destination.

Cyprus Airways told the passengers it would arrange bus transport to Paphos, a coastal resort two hours drive from Larnaca.

Airline spokesman Tassos Angelis said an irate group from the 240 passengers surrounded the plane, blocked the entrance, insulted the Greek engineer and clashed with police summoned by civil aviation officials.

"This was a hijacking," Angelis said. "They surrounded the plane and hindered its movements."

He said a high-loader servicing the plane at Athens airport had caused minor damage which took two hours to repair.

The plane's captain and the Greek engineer decided the plane should travel directly to Larnaca in the interests of safety, Angelis said.

"But some people from Paphos, one in particular, thought they knew better than the captain, called the Greek engineer stupid and said they would not let the plane take off.

"They were standing in the doorways and then the police intervened and then the civil aviation intervened."

In the end the captain told passengers who did not want to fly to remain behind in Athens, Angelis said. About 70 did so and were put up in an Athens hotel at the airline's expense.

"This was totally unacceptable behavior," Angelis said. "It is not their business to decide what the captain of an aircraft will do where safety is concerned. We won't accept it any more and we will not hesitate to blacklist anyone."

http://www.foxnews.com/world/082600/greece.sml

-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), August 26, 2000