Hijacker of Cuban plane arrested in Florida Last Updated Tue, 01 Apr 2003 13:19:00 KEY WEST, FLORIDA - The hijacker of a Cuban Airlines plane with 31 people on board is now in FBI custody in Florida. The hijakcer, who claimed to be carrying two grenades, was carrying a small boy in his arms when he came off the plane, says a Key West police spokesman. A bomb squad has removed two grenades from the plane and officers are attempting to determine whether they are genuine, said the police spokesman. Two U.S. jet fighters escorted the hijacked plane to Florida's Key West International Airport. A Cuban government statement said the Soviet-made Cuban Airlines plane was on a regular domestic flight from the Isle of Youth's main city of Nueva Gerona when the pilot reported that the plane was being hijacked to the United States by a man armed with grenades. The hijacked plane was forced to land in Havana's Jose Marti International Airport. Cuban authorities said it lacked fuel to make it to the United States. Upon landing in Havana, a group of passengers jumped from the open back hatch of the plane into the arms of emergency workers. These passengers then boarded buses and were driven off the runway. It is unclear how anyone could get a pair of grenades through the heavy security checks at a Cuban airport, especially less than two weeks after a successful hijacking of a passenger plane to the United States. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week:http://www.ttsailing.org/ TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************