Ankur Bal

@BalAnkur

Engineer by profession, electronics is my passion. I work to design circuits optimally with focus on Make in India and eliminate imports. Jai Hind.

Noida, India

Joined December 2015

854 Following

95 Followers

1.3K Posts

BalAnkur retweeted

Griffin

@6ESinger157593

about 14 hours ago

The 9/11 That Never Happened On Christmas Day in 1974, an Air India Boeing 747 was flying towards Rome with 155 people on board when a passenger forced his way into the cockpit. His name was Josef Homolov. He was carrying a small knife and had managed to get dangerously close to the controls of the aircraft. What began as a hijacking quickly became something far more serious. Homolov threatened to destroy the aircraft and, according to the crew’s account, threatened to crash it into Rome. This was almost three decades before the world would witness the horrifying spectacle of passenger aircraft being deliberately turned into weapons. The Air India crew had no reinforced cockpit door to protect them. There were no post-9/11 security procedures, no sophisticated anti-hijacking systems and no established playbook for dealing with someone who might deliberately crash a jumbo jet into a city. There was simply the crew and their training. Captain A. M. Kapur kept his composure and continued to fly the aircraft while attempting to manage the hijacker and buy time. The aircraft circled Rome as the tense situation continued. Then the crew saw an opportunity. Co-pilot B. S. Sandhu and flight engineer K. Das Gupta joined Kapur in overpowering Homolov. They managed to disarm and restrain him, bringing the hijacking to an end. The Boeing 747 landed safely at Rome. All 155 people survived. At the time, newspapers reported the dramatic episode as another successful thwarting of a hijacking. One contemporary headline captured it simply: “Crew Foils Hijacker in Jumbo Jet Over Italy.” Today, however, the story has a very different resonance. The attacks of September 11, 2001 fundamentally changed aviation. They demonstrated to the world that a hijacked airliner could be deliberately used as a weapon against a city. Cockpit security was transformed almost overnight, and the entire philosophy of aviation security changed. But the Air India crew had confronted a frightening version of that possibility 27 years earlier. It is important not to equate the two incidents. The circumstances, motivations and scale were completely different. Homolov was not carrying out an organised terrorist operation comparable to 9/11. Yet the central danger was remarkably similar: a hijacked large passenger aircraft, an attacker threatening deliberate destruction, and a major city potentially in the aircraft’s path.And the outcome could have been very different. A Boeing 747 was an enormous aircraft for its time, carrying a huge quantity of fuel and capable of causing catastrophic destruction if deliberately crashed into a densely populated area. Instead, it landed safely. The reason was remarkably simple: the cockpit crew never surrendered control. Captain Kapur kept his nerve. Sandhu and Das Gupta took the enormous personal risk of physically confronting the hijacker when the opportunity arose. They were doing what generations of airline crews have always been trained to do—protect the aircraft and the people entrusted to them. There is something especially poignant about the date. While families around the world were celebrating Christmas, three Air India crew members were fighting to prevent a disaster over one of Europe’s great cities. Their story has largely faded from public memory. It shouldn’t have. @AirIndia_News

6ESinger157593's tweet photo. The 9/11 That Never Happened

On Christmas Day in 1974, an Air India Boeing 747 was flying towards Rome with 155 people on board when a passenger forced his way into the cockpit.

His name was Josef Homolov. He was carrying a small knife and had managed to get dangerously close to the controls of the aircraft. What began as a hijacking quickly became something far more serious. Homolov threatened to destroy the aircraft and, according to the crew’s account, threatened to crash it into Rome.

This was almost three decades before the world would witness the horrifying spectacle of passenger aircraft being deliberately turned into weapons.

The Air India crew had no reinforced cockpit door to protect them. There were no post-9/11 security procedures, no sophisticated anti-hijacking systems and no established playbook for dealing with someone who might deliberately crash a jumbo jet into a city.

There was simply the crew and their training.

Captain A. M. Kapur kept his composure and continued to fly the aircraft while attempting to manage the hijacker and buy time. The aircraft circled Rome as the tense situation continued.
Then the crew saw an opportunity.

Co-pilot B. S. Sandhu and flight engineer K. Das Gupta joined Kapur in overpowering Homolov. They managed to disarm and restrain him, bringing the hijacking to an end. The Boeing 747 landed safely at Rome.

All 155 people survived.

At the time, newspapers reported the dramatic episode as another successful thwarting of a hijacking. One contemporary headline captured it simply: “Crew Foils Hijacker in Jumbo Jet Over Italy.” Today, however, the story has a very different resonance.

The attacks of September 11, 2001 fundamentally changed aviation. They demonstrated to the world that a hijacked airliner could be deliberately used as a weapon against a city. Cockpit security was transformed almost overnight, and the entire philosophy of aviation security changed.

But the Air India crew had confronted a frightening version of that possibility 27 years earlier.

It is important not to equate the two incidents. The circumstances, motivations and scale were completely different. Homolov was not carrying out an organised terrorist operation comparable to 9/11.

Yet the central danger was remarkably similar: a hijacked large passenger aircraft, an attacker threatening deliberate destruction, and a major city potentially in the aircraft’s path.And the outcome could have been very different.

A Boeing 747 was an enormous aircraft for its time, carrying a huge quantity of fuel and capable of causing catastrophic destruction if deliberately crashed into a densely populated area.
Instead, it landed safely.

The reason was remarkably simple: the cockpit crew never surrendered control.

Captain Kapur kept his nerve. Sandhu and Das Gupta took the enormous personal risk of physically confronting the hijacker when the opportunity arose. They were doing what generations of airline crews have always been trained to do—protect the aircraft and the people entrusted to them.

There is something especially poignant about the date. While families around the world were celebrating Christmas, three Air India crew members were fighting to prevent a disaster over one of Europe’s great cities.

Their story has largely faded from public memory.

It shouldn’t have.

@AirIndia_News

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