Stewart, Stanley Terror over Africa

The Shocking True Story of the Attempted Hi-jacking of British Airway’s Flight Ba2069

This is the story of a flight filled with fear, terror and a horrific near-death experience, and beyond that, a drama filled with deception, fraud and an alleged cover-up of criminal offences. The Nairobi incident is an astonishing event that represents every pilot's worst nightmare and occurred on 29 December 2000 over Sudan on British Airways Flight 2069. In the early hours of the morning, a highly agitated young man entered the cockpit of the fully occupied Boeing 747, wrestled control from First Officer Phil Watson, the only pilot in the cockpit at the time, and attempted to crash the aircraft with all its occupants. The attacker violently threw the aircraft through the air, and all passengers and crew members believed they were going to die. At one point, the 747 nearly flipped onto its back with no chance of rescue, and the world's third-worst aviation disaster was narrowly averted when Captain Hagan, who had taken a break, returned and, with the help of two passengers, managed to wrestle the controls away from the distraught young man. The incident was considered the biggest aircraft accident in aviation history. As a result, the flight accident was initially mistakenly classified as only a serious incident, and no accident investigation was conducted. BA conducted its own investigation and allegedly withheld important information that would have upgraded the serious incident to an accident. This avoided an accident investigation and a potentially critical report that would have financially damaged BA in settling compensation claims. Ultimately, all three reports on the air accident the British Airways report, the Civil Aviation Authority's full report and the Civil Aviation Authority's abridged report were withheld from the public, leading many to suspect that this was the biggest cover-up in aviation history. Due to a lack of evidence and without proof, the passengers were unable to take action, and no one was held accountable. In 2013, evidence that had been kept under wraps for many years was finally released, and after extensive investigation, research and detective work, the cover-up was uncovered, allowing the true story to finally be told.