‘We don’t storm planes’: Top cop defends response, man who called himself ‘Allah slave’ charged

NSW’s top cop has defended the amount of time it took to for officers to remove a “volatile” passenger who caused a flight-turnback.

NSW’s top cop has defended the amount of time it took for officers to remove a “volatile” passenger who caused a Malaysia-bound flight to turn back to Sydney Airport on Monday afternoon after he became unruly and started shouting about a bomb.

Speaking to 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Tuesday, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb denied the delay was “too long”.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“We were notified at about 4.15pm yesterday and it was resolved at about 6.15pm. Given it’s a volatile situation, and unpredictable, we didn’t know the severity of the incident. You have to deal with what you learn about the passenger — we didn’t know if there was a bomb. AFP had to work through all those considerations.”

Ms Webb said the “important thing is to try and defuse and not escalate the situation”.

“I praise the crew for what they did in keeping the passengers calm … to de-escalate the situation to the point that we got this matter resolved in three hours,” she said.

“I think three hours is pretty good. I know it’s pretty terrifying. The protocol in Australia is to negotiate. We don’t storm planes — this is not TV, it’s not the movies — and we want to protect the lives of all passengers.”

Passengers leaving the Malaysian Airlines plane that had to return to Sydney Airport. Picture: Julian Andrews

Ms Webb said the man had now been charged with two counts — making a false statement and not complying with directions.

He appeared at Downing Centre Court on Tuesday morning where bail was refused.

Pressed by Fordham on whether it would have been “safer if they had a police officer on board sooner”, Ms Webb conceded “we can always ask, could we have done something differently”.

“And no doubt there’ll be a debrief, but we can never presume anything and you don’t know whether this person was acting alone or he actually had other support on the plane or outside the plane,” she said.

“We’re never complacent on these issues and we should never presume anything. We’re just lucky in Australia this happens so rarely but we should never be complacent to think it could never happen here.”

‘Praying really loudly’

Speaking to Sunrise on Tuesday, passenger Edo Khan, who was sitting a few rows behind the man, said as the plane was taking off the man “started praying really loudly”, saying “Allahu Akbar, God is great, louder and louder”.

“I sent a text to my wife,” Mr Khan said. “She was a bit freaked out.”

According to Mr Khan, as the flight continued, the man “had this bag strapped on his front” and refused to put it in the overhead locker.

“That’s what started the whole thing,” he said. “The air crew asked him to put it up. He wouldn’t put it up. And then he said, ‘Don’t touch me.’ Then he started saying, ‘I have got a bomb in here. If you love your life ... don’t touch me.’”

Other passengers were “obviously getting pretty freaked out by that”, Mr Khan said, “but at the same time, he was so erratic and the stuff he was saying was so sort of incoherent as well, it was hard to know”.

“My feeling was he is bluffing,” he said. “How would he have got that on?”

‘Slave of Allah’

It comes after passengers on board the Malaysia Airlines flight revealed the moment the man became “lucid” again.

Flight MH122 to Kuala Lumpur was diverted back to Sydney and was isolated on the tarmac with AFP officers called to the emergency just before 4pm on Monday.

Pictures from the plane, an Airbus A330 jet, showed a man with a white beard wearing a backpack over his stomach.

In the alarming footage, he can be heard saying: “My name is Mohammed, slave of Allah”.

“Are you a slave of Allah? Are you? Say it. Say it! Are you a slave of Allah?”

He also allegedly told flight attendants that there was a bomb in his bag.

A man forced a plane to return to Sydney Airport after he allegedly caused a disruption on board MH122. Picture: Muhammad Zubair

He was arrested after shouting about Islam mid-flight.

Muhammad Zubair, from Newcastle, was sitting in the same aisle as the man and saw him acting erratically before boarding but initially thought he was just a nervous flyer.

Mr Zubair said the man refused to put his backpack in the overhead locker, telling cabin crew that there was a Koran in the bag, The Daily Telegraph reports.

#Sydney Airport is suffering at the hands of this lunatic as he has taken #MH122 hostage. Praying for everyone's safety and well being.

Where is Airport security?! Its been well over an hour since the plane has landed back!!! pic.twitter.com/rSWExD9EXm

— Jawad Nazir ✈ (@jawadmnazir) August 14, 2023

Once the plane had taken off and the seatbelt sign had turned off the man allegedly stood up and started shouting “don’t touch me” and “there is a bomb in my bag”.

The plane then returned to Sydney Airport where passengers were forced to wait on the tarmac for several hours before passengers were taken off the aircraft at around 6.30pm.

AFP officers stormed the plane just after 7pm and arrested the man.

Police detain the man. Photo: Twitter

Sammi Marks, who was seated five rows ahead of the man, praised crew for calming him down.

“The cabin crew member who is with the guy is honestly amazing,” she said.

“He’s gone from having to physically restrain him to now sitting with him and speaking with him calmly and with kindness.”

Ms Marks said the man appeared to be becoming more alert and was “coming out” of his previous state of mind.

“When he’s lucid again, it must be an awful thing to realise what you’ve done during a schism,” she added.

The man shouted that his bag had a bomb in it, according to passengers on the flight. Picture: Muhammad Zubair

Other passengers were less sympathetic to the man, including Muslims who said he had “brought shame” on them.

“This lunatic now says it was a joke, he was testing Muslims. This idiot, he brings shame to other fellow Muslims,” one man tweeted.

Jawad Nazir from Sydney, whose friend was on board, said the man waited until the plane hit cruising altitude before making his disturbing claims.

“My friend said he waited, 20 to 25 minutes … he was yelling at the passenger next to him, had the backpack on his chest,” Mr Nazir said.

Passengers disembarking MH122 after several hours on the tarmac. Picture: Muhammad Zubair, @chzaib,

“He started saying ‘don’t come close, if you fear Allah don’t touch the bag’.”

Mr Nazir, a practising Muslim, said the passenger was “embarrassing”.

“I’m gutted and feel extremely bad, all it takes is one person to tar everyone with the same brush … I feel bad for the people on the plane, no one deserves to go through something like this.”

One woman tweeted that the incident had started early in the flight with the man constantly chanting.

“Then this guy launches out of his seat with a backpack strapped ON FRONT and starts losing it. Yelling at the top of his lungs and ‘preaching’ incomprehensibly,” she wrote.

Malaysian Airlines passengers waiting in Sydney airport after disembarking a plane that was forced to turn back following an incident on board. Picture: Supplied.

“He was stalking the aisles getting in the faces of passengers. Cabin staff came through to contain him and he kicked off even more.

“(He) unzipped his backpack, put his hands in, made barely veiled threats about having something dangerous in it screaming at the top of his lungs right next to my seat. Never been so scared.

“(He) arced up again and tried to take on a passenger who stood up to him. Lord help us if we ever have a more serious incident.”

In a statement the AFP said an evacuation of the aircraft was taken out once it was “deemed safe for passengers and crew”.

“Updates will be provided at an appropriate time,” the statement said.