Pilot recalls terrifying hijacking attempt in air

Pilot recalls terrifying hijacking attempt in air

2 April 2014

AN airline pilot from Newcastle, who saved the lives of almost 400 passengers during an attempted suicide hijacking of his plane, has spoken of his theory about the disappearance of Malaysian airline MH 370.

Captain Bill Hagan was dubbed Captain Courageous after fighting off a mentally ill passenger who stormed into the cockpit of his British Airways flight from Gatwick to Nairobi in December 2000.

Pragmatic Bill, who is a former Down High School student who turned out for Ballynahinch Rugby Club for a season and a half in 1969, was widely praised at the time for restraining Kenyan student Paul Mukonyi who forced the plane into a steep 90 second dive, causing it to plunge 15,000 feet.

Reliving the near-disaster in recent days as the world’s media turns to airline specialists to discuss the potential whereabouts of Flight MH 370, Mr. Hagan, who is now a 66 year-old airline consultant, said his own flight fell more than 30,000 feet per minute, which has almost never been recovered from in commercial aircraft.

“It was quite a substantial loss of control,” he said.

“The plane nearly flipped upside down. We partially inverted. It was very extreme.

“What made it really frightening for the passengers is that the aircraft kept stalling and a stall is, in many ways, more scary than a steep dive.”

Mr. Hagan, whose wife and children were on board the flight as well as a number of high profile passengers including socialite Jemima Khan, her mother Lady Annabel Goldsmith and Bryan Ferry, said he became very angry that the man was trying to kill his family and everyone else on the plane.

“My little boy had asked me a few days earlier what I would do if I was attacked by a shark and I said I would jab a finger in its eye to stop it,” he said.

“That was my inspiration. So I reached over the hijacker’s head and, aiming for his eye socket, I pushed my finger into it as hard as I could.”

Despite being bitten, Mr. Hagan managed to drag Mukonyi into the club class cabin where he was forced to the floor with the assistance of other passengers.

He then announced to the passengers that a “madman” had tried to crash the plane but the situation had since been resolved.

Mr. Hagan and his colleagues on the flight deck, Mr. Phil Watson and Richard Webb, were later given bravery awards.

But he said he simply did “what was necessary.”

“I showed my street fighting qualities,” he said.

Following the incident, airline security was tightened with cockpits locked in the UK. Speaking about Flight MH 370, Mr. Hagan said he thinks there may have been a fire on board that has overcome the cockpit.

“In that situation smoke places a huge workload on the pilots. A few seconds will make the difference between living and dying.

“You have to point the aircraft to somewhere really close and get it down as soon as possible. You’ve got to find out where the smoke is and you have got to clear it.

He believes it is possible that the flight crew may have passed out from smoke and that the autopilot may have engaged, meaning the plane would have flown on the southerly rout until it ran out of fuel.