I found myself in a Hijacking attempt Oslo - Istanbul

I was peacefully asleep on Oslo – Istanbul flight when I was woken up by some noise. Looking around I saw a masked man in the back of the plane holding what seemed to me a small plastic box and shouting in Turkish that we would all die if the plane would land in Istanbul. With my little Turkish I understood he wanted the plane to fly back to Oslo. I also realized that while I slept, the crew moved most of the passengers to the front. I was still sitting in 18th row with nobody behind me except the masked man, who got very angry as we started to land. As cabin crew was trying to calm him down I did not dare to imagine what he would do if we landed. There was a Norwegian man sitting in front of me, who told me it was better to deal with the hijacker when on land, not in the air. But as I was busy praying and was not much of a company, not to say anything that I would have been of no great help, the Norwegian turned to a Turkish man sitting in the next row. When we landed it was like in all those movies that we have seen - lots of firemen, ambulances and police around the plane. Some passengers started to get up and the hijacker became more and more agitated, shouting for us to sit still. Frankly now I was more afraid of shooting that could start with the police entrance. But before that, and true to his word, the Norwegian rose and moved towards the hijacker, shouting something in Norwegian. In a second he jumped on the man and the Turkish man was also there. I did not see what happened next as I grabbed my stuff and left the plane hastily with all the others. The bus was there and before leaving we saw the police going up the plane. Most of the passengers fled the plane leaving all their belongings there, jackets, bags, phones, passports… all was later returned to them. But it was so funny to realize that I have taken not only all my things with me but also the airplane pillow that I had under my head while I was asleep.

When I told the story at home, my aunt said, the airlines should demand a certificate that you are not mentally disturbed to allow you on plane. And sure enough, later we have learned that there was no explosive found but they found a card for the handicapped, suffering a mental illness.

All is well that ends well they say, but it ended well thanks to the passengers – Dag Gjerstad and Firat Faysal Ali.