Two attendants stabbed in scuffle aboard domestic Australian flight Canadian Press Thursday, May 29, 2003 SYDNEY (AP) - A man shouting threats used two sharpened wooden stakes to try to force his way into the cockpit of a domestic Australian flight Thursday, stabbing two flight attendants before he was overwhelmed by the cabin crew and fellow passengers, the government said. Transportation Minister John Anderson described the man as "less than stable" and said the attack did not appear linked to terrorism. The plane returned to its departure city of Melbourne, where it landed safely and the Qantas attendants were hospitalized with stab wounds. "Although it looks premeditated, it doesn't look like it was an act of terrorism," Anderson told a hastily arranged news conference. However Anderson also said the man "seemed to be intent upon trying to force a nasty outcome, and if you call an attempt to, as I understand it, to crash an aircraft, you might call that a hijacking, but he was not able to do so." The Qantas flight had departed for the southern island of Tasmania when the man emerged from the seventh row and tried to pass the crew on his way to the cockpit, Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon told reporters. "He never got to the cockpit," Dixon said, adding that the doors were locked during the flight. Two passengers were also injured as they and the crew overwhelmed the man. The attacker was in custody and being interviewed by police, said Jane O'Brien, spokeswoman for the Australian Federal Police. He was not identified. Anderson said the wooden weapons had gone through security checks unnoticed, calling the oversight a "lesson about unforeseen tools being used." Qantas chief Dixon described the weapons as two small wooden stakes, which he said were about 15 centimetres long. The man shouted threats as he attempted to storm the cockpit, "nasty sort of threats to cause damage and grief," Anderson said. He said there were no sky marshals on board the flight. "We'll leave no stone unturned, plainly we don't want to see a repeat of this," Anderson said. The plane turned around and landed at Melbourne not long after it had departed, where police and emergency services rushed to the scene. Police met passengers in the departure lounge at Melbourne's airport for further questioning. The flight attendants, a man in his late 30s and a woman in her 20s, were taken to a nearby hospital. The man suffered a gash in the back of his head and the woman had a gash and cut to her face, Dixon said. They were in a stable condition. Two passengers were treated by paramedics at the scene for minor injuries, Metropolitan Ambulance spokesman James Howe said. *************************************************** 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/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.caribbeanfloral.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************