Man Held After Telling Captain To "Fly Faster"

May 6, 2004
A passenger who tried to enter the cockpit of a plane flying from Dubai to Pakistan to tell the captain to go faster was detained by authorities on landing on Thursday.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the motivation of the unarmed Pakistani passenger aboard the Aeroasia flight was not immediately clear, but added: "He said he was trying to reach the pilot to ask him to fly faster."

Pakistani airports have been on a heightened state of alert this week after intelligence reports suggested a terrorist group was planning to hijack an aircraft.

The reports have surfaced since Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, announced plans to return to Pakistan next week.

An intelligence official said the passenger, identified as Majid Latif, had had an argument with the crew and then tried to approach the pilot. The passenger and his luggage had been searched and no weapons found, he said.

A senior official of the Airport Security Force said the incident was under investigation. "The person may be mentally unstable, but we have not drawn any conclusions yet," he said.

Probably this was on an A340, committed by a guy who was used to B747 speeds (like most of us).

Did anyone check to see if the toilets were broken?

Didn't anyone tell him the pilot was pedalling as fast as he could already?

Pratt&Whitney needs to bump up the camelpower ratings on those turbofans