April 2, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 29, 1424

KEY WEST, April 1: A Cuban passenger plane hijacked by a man who threatened to explode a hand grenade landed safely in Florida on Tuesday and the suspected hijacker was taken into police custody, US authorities said.

The twin-propeller aircraft, with 31 people aboard, landed shortly after 11:34 am at Key West International Airport, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Christopher White said. It was the second hijacking in two weeks of a Cuban airliner by Cubans seeking to leave their island for the United States.

The suspected hijacker carried a small boy who appeared to be a relative off the plane, put him down and was taken into custody, Key West Police spokesman Steve Torrence said.

“It looked like they were family. When he let the little boy down on the tarmac the little boy grabbed his leg,” Torrence said.

Uniformed US officials surrounded the Cubana Airlines Antonov 24 as police snipers aimed guns at the aircraft. Passengers filed out with their hands in the air. The male passengers slowly lifted their shirts in the air to show they were not hiding weapons, then lay down on the tarmac.

Within an hour of landing, all were off the plane and were to be interviewed by federal investigators, Torrence said.

The North American Aerospace Defence Command, known as NORAD, scrambled two F-16 fighter jets from a south Florida air reserve base to escort the plane, a spokesman said. Key West is just 90 miles north of Cuba.

TWO GRENADES: The Cuban government said the plane originally had 46 passengers and crew when it was hijacked on a domestic flight from the Isle of Youth to Havana on Monday night by a man apparently armed with two grenades.

The hijacker threatened to explode a grenade unless he was flown across the Florida Straits, but the plane did not have enough fuel for the trip and landed at Havana’s international airport, a Cuban government statement said.

After a 12-hour stand-off that closed the Havana airport to all flights, the hijacker allowed some passengers, including children, to get off the aircraft. The plane was refuelled and left Havana just before 11 am EST for Key West.

The hijacking came less than two weeks after a group of six Cubans hijacked a Douglas DC-3 at knifepoint with 31 other people on board and forced the pilot to fly to Key West. That plane was still sitting at the Key West airport when the second one landed nearby on Tuesday.—Reuters