A Canadian man has been charged with hijacking a small airplane after he triggered a safety scare at Vancouver’s airport this week.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police stated Thursday Shaheer Cassim, 39, has been charged with hijacking, constituting terrorism, over the incident Tuesday that noticed the North American Aerospace Protection Command scramble F-15 fighter jets earlier than the airplane safely landed.
The RCMP stated he seized management of a Cessna 172 at Victoria Worldwide Airport on Vancouver Island by threatening a flight teacher, earlier than flying about 40 miles to Vancouver.
In a recording of air site visitors management posted to liveatc.web, an official may be heard stating: “We have now an incident proper above our airspace right here — a hijacked 172,” the Vancouver Solar reported.
Pictures printed by public broadcaster CBC and video shared on-line confirmed the small white Cessna surrounded by safety automobiles on a runway after touchdown in Vancouver.
“Investigators have decided the suspect acted with an ideological motive to disrupt airspace,” Sgt. Tammy Lobb stated in an announcement.
A person with the identical identify and who resembles Cassim posted on social media that he was a “messenger of Allah” and a “Messiah” despatched to avoid wasting humanity from local weather change.
He stated “the Angel Gabriel appeared earlier than me and gave me a message from Allah.”
Cassim’s final put up warns about “abrupt runaway international warming” that may trigger people to go extinct inside just a few years.
Cassim additionally stated within the put up that he’s “Sam Carana,” who runs the “Arctic Information” weblog that describes itself as a spot the place contributors “all share a deep concern about the way in which local weather change is unfolding within the Arctic and the menace that this poses for the world at massive.”
His Fb profile says he was employed from 2008 to 2010 by now-defunct KD Air, a small airline primarily based on Vancouver Island.
Airline’s former house owners “very stunned”
The airline’s former house owners, Diana and Lars Banke, stated in an interview Wednesday that Cassim was one of many smartest and greatest pilots they ever labored with, calling him a quick learner who was extremely smart.
However Lars Banke stated Cassim left the airline after getting “bored” after which went to medical faculty. He additionally stated Cassim believed the world was coming to an finish.
Diana Banke stated she was “very stunned” to listen to of Cassim’s fees, saying he was fairly younger when he labored for them and was “like a child.”
Lars Banke stated he recalled that Cassim was considerably serious about environmentalism, however he was unaware of any sort of spiritual beliefs.
“He by no means spoke faith with us,” Diana Banke stated.
“I am actually stunned that he would’ve carried out one thing like this,” she added.
In 2012, Cassim held a information convention earlier than occurring a cross-country bicycle experience to lift consciousness for international warming.
British Columbia Premier David Eby stated when requested in regards to the incident Thursday that it was a “weird second,” and the truth that it ended and not using a extra important disruption on the airport is a “testomony” to the talent of responders who talked the suspect down.
Vancouver Worldwide Airport stated in a assertion that 9 inbound flights had been diverted through the incident with a brief halt to operations ordered throughout the airport within the West Coast metropolis. Flights had been grounded for 39 minutes.
Airport head of communications Stephen Good instructed the CBC that it “might have lasted rather a lot longer.”
