Police storm jet, seize 10 in new hijack scare

By JEREMY REES and AGENCIES

Heavily armed police stormed on to an American Airlines jet at New York's Kennedy Airport last night after fears of another suicidal terrorist hijacking.

Foiling what they feared was a second wave of attacks yesterday, authorities say they have taken into custody nine men and one woman - five people at John F. Kennedy International Airport, and five men at LaGuardia International Airport.

Both airports, which had reopened, were immediately shut again.

ABC television network that reported some were carrying knives, like those used in the hijacking of four commercial aeroplanes, and false identification.

Sources said some were also carrying open tickets to destinations in America dated Tuesday, the day of the kamikaze attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that have left more than 4000 people dead or missing.

They also had certificates from a Florida flight training school attended by some members of the previous hijacking teams.

Jim Hunter, a passenger on American Airlines 133 from Kennedy Airport, New York to Los Angeles, said officers with guns drawn and with bomb sniffer dogs stormed the flight from the front and rear.

They handcuffed and removed three people after ordering all passengers to the floor. The flight was cancelled.

A woman was later also detained. Earlier in the day, police at Kennedy Airport seized a man carrying a false pilot identification.

Unconfirmed reports on CNN said some of those detained had been challenged on Tuesday at one of the airports from which the hijackers boarded.

The names of the 10 people detained in New York were on "watch lists" of suspected terrorists given to airports by federal authorities.

Jim Hunter said the armed police screamed at passengers to "hit the floor".

"There was a commotion going on behind me where they were subduing a passenger and he was definitely resisting and trying to fight off.

"It was obviously worthless given how many policemen were on the airplane. And then two other passengers who were right in front of me were asked to go with authorities as well.

"They were taken to a galley, handcuffed and then led off the plane from the front as well."



The arrests come after a day of continuing tension in America, in which the air was charged with a mix of horror, gloom, grief and anger.

A tearful President George W. Bush threatened to wage a relentless campaign to "whip terrorism".

"You're looking at the face of war in the 21st century," he said.

But the air was also heavy with horror as rescuers dug through the rubble of the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

At the Pentagon, rescuers told of finding charred bodies huddled around television sets, where they had apparently been watching the New York bombings.

In New York the air was heavy with gloom. Hundreds gathered outside the armoury in Manhattan, a makeshift centre for families of the missing, clutching photos and pleading for information or hope. People had plastered flyers for the missing on lamp-posts and buildings, walls and cars.

One woman told CNN that her friend, trapped on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center's north tower, had phoned her. "She said, 'Oh, God, please save me'. She was screaming that she was trapped and couldn't get out. She said, 'I don't know what to do, I'm coughing, the heat is coming. I need water. I need water."

Then the phone went dead."

The threat of war hung in the air. Turkey said it had opened its air space to US fighter planes, which have bolstered its base near Iraq.

The White House asked for $20 billion to fight terror and rebuild, Congress agreed to $40 billion. Mr Bush is considering calling up 50,000 military reservists.

In Manhattan, the air was still thick with the choking dust of asbestos and concrete dust which covered the city when the Trade Center towers collapsed.

Rescuers, still searching for survivors among the rubble yesterday, wore masks against the dust and the growing smell of rotting bodies.

There were to be no miracles - reports that five firefighters had been pulled alive from the rubble turned out to be false.

Eventually, much of the work was suspended as the air grew thick with a thunderstorm.

The fate of 4763 people - and maybe thousands more - is still hanging in the air.

Some tried to return some normality to the gloom. New York mayor Rudy Giuliani urged New Yorkers to "get out, don't feel locked in. Go to stores, go to restaurants ... Get on with our lives".

Across the country there was a jittery atmosphere as bomb hoaxes and rumours of more attacks came in waves.

The Capitol building was evacuated because of a bomb threat, which turned out to be false, and security was increased around the White House.

Vice-President Dick Cheney was moved to the presidential retreat at Camp David as a precaution.

Fighter jets continued to patrol over New York and Washington.

In 90 minutes at lunchtime, bomb scares at New York's Grand Central Terminal, Macy's department store and La Guardia Airport sent thousands panicking on to the streets.



The FBI believes up to 52 conspirators may have been involved, as well as 18 hijackers on the four aeroplanes that crashed. It confirmed Muslim extremist Osama bin Laden as the lead suspect.

But there were missteps and false starts.

Two brothers - Ameer and Adnan Bukhari - named as suspects on Thursday turned out to be innocent, their identities stolen by the hijackers. One had been dead for months.

At the Pentagon, search crews picked up the distinctive "ping" of the crashed aircraft's "black box" flight recorder.

And the black box has been retrieved from the hijacked commercial jetliner that crashed in south-western Pennsylvania.