Jet Hijack Suspect Used Indiana Jones Hat Trick

The Ethiopian arrested for hijacking a Lufthansa jet was able to smuggle a gun aboard the plane by hiding it in a wide-brimmed Indiana Jones hat as he went through tight security at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, a prosecutor said Friday.

Court papers said 20-year-old Nebiu Zewolde Demeke took his hat off and passed it around the metal detector he went through at the airport, thus avoiding detection. Once on board the Airbus 310, he pulled the starter’s gun loaded with blanks on the pilot and threatened to kill a flight attendant “every five minutes” if his demand to be taken to New York was not obeyed, the papers said.

Demeke, whose threats triggered a 10-hour hostage ordeal for 104 people aboard the plane, made a brief appearance in court and was ordered held without bail pending another hearing Feb. 26.

Prosecutor Thomas Roche said the hat was a wide-brimmed fedora of the sort worn in the Indiana Jones film series. Roche said Demeke, the son of an Ethiopian economist and a Moroccan mother, hijacked the plane for “personal reasons,” possibly to join a brother and a sister living in the United States after being refused permission to enter legally.

He said that the German government had made a provisional request for extradition. The State Department said it would not second-guess Germany’s decision to allow the aircraft to depart for New York despite a possible threat to the lives of passengers.

“Clearly, in this case, German authorities and the pilot judged that a takeoff was necessary in order to protect the passengers and crew,” spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Under international civil aviation law, hijacked aircraft are allowed to take off only if this is “necessitated by the overriding duty to protect human life.”

Demeke surrendered politely and peacefully, even thanking the captain he had held at gunpoint. If convicted, he faces a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.

He earned the dubious distinction of being the first person to hijack a plane across the Atlantic to New York, a feat that had many New Yorkers questioning his judgment. “Why would someone hijack a plane to come here?” was one typical reaction.

The captain and co-pilot told German television that Demeke spoke American slang and said he had friends in Boston.