No hijacking, just a rookie mistake

A commercial aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) over the weekend after the pilot pushed a distress button by mistake, an airport official said yesterday.

Engineer Octavio Lina, Manila International Airport Authority operations manager, identified the pilot as Capt. Claude Beirney, pilot of Qatar Airways Fight QR-645 bound for Doha, Qatar last Saturday.

Lina said the pilot, who is relatively new on the job, pushed the button calling for help due to a hijacker on board.

However, Lina said there was neither a hijacker on board the plane nor was there any problem with any of the passengers or crew.

He said that on April 11, Flight QR-645 took off at 6:49 a.m. The plane was one of the latest addition to the Qatar Airways fleet — an Airbus 330 Series 200 with a capacity of 300 passengers.

That day, the flight manifest registered some 184 passengers on board.

Lina said that at around 7 a.m., the Manila Radar Control Tower at NAIA received a distress signal from the flight, signaling for help and indicating that there was a hijacker on board.

He said that a radar transponder only indicates codes and no human voice. An Airbus 330 Series 200 has a button that transmits such signals to the control tower.

The control tower then radioed the plane to come back and land at NAIA immediately.

Airport personnel at the NAIA were alerted and tight security was immediately ordered. Police were deployed in the area where the plane was to land.

The aircraft was ordered to land in a remote area of the airport, an area called "Remote Parking 24."

The pilot was likewise ordered to dump into Manila Bay some 50,000 kilos of aviation fuel before landing.

At around 7:27 a.m., the plane safely landed at the remote parking area of NAIA.

General Angel Atutubo, MIAA assistant general manager for security and emergency services, led the security force to inspect the aircraft.

To everyone’s relief, the pilot, upon meeting the security, admitted that there was no hijacker.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the plane, and that he only made a mistake in pushing the distress button.