Hijacked Plane Crashes In Auckland Harbor

[Gold9472]

Hijacked plane crashes in Auckland harbor
Pilot had threatened to strike New Zealand's highest building

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9373201/

Updated: 6:43 a.m. ET Sept. 17, 2005

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A light aircraft, hijacked by a pilot who threatened to crash it into New Zealand’s highest building in Auckland, has plunged into the city’s harbor, radio reports said on Saturday.

Radio New Zealand said the 328 meter (1,140 feet) Sky Tower was evacuated after threats were made by the pilot, who it said had stolen the plane from a local airport south of Auckland.

The tower sits on top of a large casino and hotel complex in the center of Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city.

It was not immediately clear how many people were aboard the plane and what their condition was. Police boats were moving toward the spot where the plane went down.

Police were unavailable for comment and there were no further details.

The leaders of the two main political parties -- Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark and National’s Don Brash -- were both in the city awaiting the outcome of the general election.

[Gold9472]

Ok... so the pilot warned that it was going to crash the plane into the highest building in Auckland, and the people were evacuated beforehand. That means the people monitoring the cockpit radio, managed to somehow break through all the red tape, and make sure the people who needed to know, knew. It's amazing to me how other countries with less sophisticated technology have the ability to function so efficiently, compared to the United States on 9/11.

[beltman713]

Word!

[Gold9472]

Word!

To your mother!

[beltman713]

lol! Vanilla Ice in da house.

[Gold9472]

lol! Vanilla Ice in da house.

Personally, I never understood how someone who steals a rift from a great Queen song, managed to get so popular... and with only one song.

[somebigguy]

Personally, I never understood how someone who steals a rift from a great Queen song, managed to get so popular... and with only one song.
First of all, there are no great Queen songs.

Second of all, I would have loved it if he hit the building, it had been evacuated, nobody would have been hurt. And after all was said and done, the building would have remained standing.

Son of a bitch, and it crashes into the harbor. Ahh, what could have been....

[Gold9472]

First of all, there are no great Queen songs.

Second of all, I would have loved it if he hit the building, it had been evacuated, nobody would have been hurt. And after all was said and done, the building would have remained standing.

Son of a bitch, and it crashes into the harbor. Ahh, what could have been....

The response is good enough IMO. They make it TOO easy.

[princesskittypoo]

i thought they didn't know where our highjacked planes were heading.

[Gold9472]

i thought they didn't know where our highjacked planes were heading.

Well, if you believe that the most sophisticated radar systems in the world aren't capable of tracking planes, then no, they had no idea where the planes were headed. That, however, is not the point I was making. It took them an hour and a half to respond to what was going on, and the reasons given by them were communications problems. For a system proven to work on almost every other occasion. Yet, on 9/11, that system proven to work on almost every other occasion, didn't. In other words, the United States, with the most technologically advanced communications systems in the world, with the most technologically advanced radar systems in the world, and with a system proven to work on almost every other occasion, failed to do what was done in New Zealand. Could the second tower have been evacuated after the first plane hit? Why wasn't it?