Malaysia Airlines bomb scare: passengers describe their terror
BRAVE passengers who tackled a man threatening to blow up a Malaysia Airlines plane have described the moment instincts kicked in to save fellow travellers.
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BRAVE passengers who tackled a man threatening to blow up a Malaysia Airlines plane have described the moment instincts kicked in to save fellow travellers.
Scott Lodge was one of the first to pounce on the man threatening to blow up the aircraft.
He said he noticed something was wrong when the 25-year-old Dandenong man started fiercely rummaging around in the overhead compartment while repeatedly being told to sit down by cabin crew. Mr Lodge was sitting two rows behind the alleged attacker.
“Instantly, I took my headphones off wondering what was going on over there,” Mr Lodge said.
“He eventually pulled something down into his lap ... he got some form of device out, and before we knew it, he was out of his seat. He went straight up on the cabin, started trying to get in, that’s when I think he panicked, and he came all the way back down to the back of the plane.”
That’s when adrenaline kicked in for Mr Lodge.
“I had my seatbelt undone, and one leg in the aisle ready to go, knowing this guy is just not good news at all,” he said
“Once he stood up to head toward the cabin, head to toe, I turned white, like blood had disappeared from my body.
“He grabbed a flight attendant’s arm, she grabbed his arm ... she didn’t even need to scream because before we knew it, four of us pounced on him. All of a sudden, someone’s got him in a choke hold, got his arm around his back.
“At that point, we’re all yelling that someone needs to tell the captain and turn this thing around, because at this stage we were still climbing over take off.
“We tried prising his arms away from him, because we were worried he had some detonator device in his hand, and that was just like completely scary.
“We threw him on to his front, and carried him over three or four sets of stairs to the front, and all of a sudden you could feel the plane start to veer left, and we knew we were doing an emergency landing.”
Mr Lodge said when they tied the man up, he started shouting about bombing the plane, when the cabin crew desperately tried working out where the potential bomb was.
“Eventually team SWAT came rolling in with the biggest guns ever, night vision goggles, the full works, and he got absolutely ripped out of that aeroplane,” he said.
Rob Macdonald said instincts kicked in when he leapt out of his seat and helped tackle the alleged attacker to the ground.
Mr Macdonald, on his way home to Scotland, said he didn’t think twice when the stewards yelled for help.
He and a handful of other men held the man down on the ground, while the cabin crew tied him up with hog ties and a spare seatbelt.
“I just heard the (air hostess) yelling for help, saying this guy’s crazy,” he said.
“I pinned him down; I held him down with the other guys
“His eyes were glazed; when we held him down, his eyes were just staring and glassed.”
When asked about being branded a “hero” by fellow passengers, Mr Macdonald shrugged off the label.
“That’s rubbish, I’m no hero,” he said. “I’d do it again.”
Former Melbourne AFL footballer Andrew Leoncelli described passengers’ terror as the man first stood up and started yelling.
“The staff were saying ‘sit back down sir, sit back down sir’. He goes, ‘no, I’m not going to sit back down — I’m going to blow the plane up’,” Mr Leoncelli said. “The staff screamed out, ‘I need some help, I need some help’. So I jumped up, undid my buckle, and approached him.
“I said, ‘mate, what are you f---ing doing?’ And he said ‘I’m going to blow the f---ing plane up, I’m going to blow the f---ing plane up.
“And I was going, ‘oh my God, he’s f---ing insane’.
“So, I took a step back. And I said to my friend, ‘mate this guy’s serious. We’d better f---ing do something’. So, I approached him and he ran down the side and then he ended up going down the back of the plane.”
POLICE DEFEND REACTION TIME TO BOMB THREAT
Reporting by David Hurley, James Dowling and Therese Allaoui
POLICE were yesterday forced to defend their response to the incident after passengers complained about the amount of time they had to wait inside the plane before officers entered it.
Victoria Police last night moved to correct Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton’s response time frames he earlier provided to a parliamentary hearing.
Crew and passengers were praised for the way they reacted to the terrifying scenario, with some leaping from their seats to help tackle the man to the floor.
Manodh Marks, 25, appeared at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court yesterday afternoon charged with endangering the safety of an aircraft and making threats or false statements.
——————
MH128 BOMB THREAT TIMELINE, times supplied by Victoria Police
Plane takes off from Melbourne Airport at 11.11pm
AFP Operations Coordination Centre advised at 11.37pm
Melbourne AFP Aviation advised at 11.38pm
AFP notified Vic Police at 11.39pm
AFP established Police Forward Command at Gate 27, as MH128 taxied to a secure position on the tarmac at 11.43pm
Plane lands at Tullamarine at 11.47pm
Victoria Police’s Special Operations Group (SOG) notified by D24 communications centre at 11.53pm
Victoria Police general duties arrive at 23.55pm
SOG and Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) arrive at 12.23am
Formal handover of operational command to Victoria Police at 12.34am
Police board plane at 01.21am
——————
He had been released from psychiatric care at the Monash Medical Centre hours before the flight took off.
The flight had taken off at 11.11pm but within minutes, Mr Marks, who had been seated in row 31, got up and made his way to the cockpit door.
“He has attempted to enter the cockpit (and) at that time he was carrying a plastic bag,” Mr Ashton said. “The plastic bag contained what appeared to be a speaker-like device and a cord.”
Mr Marks allegedly claimed he had a bomb he was going to detonate before he was subdued by crew members and passengers.
Last night, Victoria Police released a timeline of how events unfolded amid criticism it took too long to enter the plane.
The plane landed at 11.47pm and Special Operation Group officers boarded the plane at 1.21am.
Stan and Pam Young said they were angry that passengers on the flight were not evacuated sooner.
“He ran past and we didn’t know anything was happening until he started saying ‘I want to speak to the pilot’,” Mr Young said.
“If there was a bomb on that plane, we should have been taken from it. Instead, we sat there for another hour-and-a-half. There was no communication. They literally left us waiting and wondering.”
Mrs Young said: “It took two hours for them to come. We sat on the tarmac waiting, not really knowing what was going on.”
But Mr Ashton said he was satisfied with the response.
“I certainly appreciate when you are on a plane in that situation, one minute can seem like an hour,” Mr Ashton said. “But I’m satisfied with our response. It was a successful outcome.”
Premier Daniel Andrews backed the police response.
Mr Marks appeared before Magistrate Suzie Cameron and was remanded to reappear in August.
Leoncelli says the device in the man’s hand was “the size of a watermelon”.
“It was huge, it was black and it had two black antennas coming off it, but it also looked like an iPhone jack. So it could have been just a beatbox thing,” he said. “I think the guy was just an idiot”.
Passengers Stan and Pam Young, who were flying on to London, were angry they were not evacuated sooner.
“If there was a bomb on that plane we should have been communicated (to) ... instead, we sat there for another hour and a half,” they said.
“There was no communication.
“They literally left us waiting and wondering.”
Dhana Sekaran, who said he was a passenger on the plane, tweeted: “About eight guys, of course including me, jumped and restrained him.
“Thank god I am on board to sort this s*** out. Never thought I will be back to Melbourne this quick,” he said.
Two teenagers on their first international holiday told their parents of young children screaming as a man threatened to bomb their Malaysia Airlines flight.
Best friends Mikaela Scandizzo and Ashlee Berkec, both 19, refuse to get on another plane after a man held up their flight right near them. Their parents were at arrivals waiting for their daughters, who were being debriefed and interviewed by police at Gate 7 inside the airport.
“We’re still shaken but tired as well,” Mikaela said.
She said two young men in their 20s, both wearing board shorts, tackled the man as he ran up the aisle. Ashlee told her mum she would not get on a plane again despite planning their Thailand holiday for months.
The pair borrowed someone’s phone after leaving their belongings on the flight and told their parents the man had grabbed a woman and a child before they say he was tasered.
Police Superintendent Tony Langdon praised the actions of the passengers who tackled the man.
“I think it is quite heroic by the passengers and the crew to restrain him in the way they’ve done,” Supt Langdon said.
“We have done everything we can and I know Malaysian Airlines have done everything they can to try to help get the passengers through this process and be able to return home or get on to other flights”
Saiqa Chaudhery, whose husband was on the plane, told news.com.au that the man appeared to be under the influence of drugs.
“He heard a lot of screaming and (an) air hostess calling out for help as a passenger attacked her,” Ms Chaudhery said.
“Some other passengers and crew tied the man down and (the) flight landed back at Melbourne Airport 25 minutes after takeoff.”
Joy and John Grant arrived at the airport at 2am for their 5am flight to Dubai.
“When we came we saw the airport was empty,” Mrs Grant said. “No one has told us anything.”
The couple were told by another passenger to expect delays of up to five hours for their Emirates flight.
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