MEXICO CITY — 2:30. 2:29. 2:28. . . . The assistant pilot, trying to calm the hijacker in the rear cabin of the grounded aircraft, stared at the flashing red display until he couldn’t take it anymore. He walked to the front of the plane and took deep breaths for a full minute as he imagined himself being blown up with passengers and crew.
0:03. 0:02. 0:01. What goes through someone’s head at a time like this?
“I imagined myself in the middle of an explosion, and I thought that in that moment my life would end,” said Carlos Corzo.
But there was only silence. The “bomb” was just three juice cans filled with sand.
The three pilots of Aeromexico Flight 576, which was hijacked Wednesday afternoon on its way into Mexico City, spoke about the ordeal to The Associated Press. They described an incoherent Bolivian pastor, Jose Flores, 44, whose Biblical warnings and strange demands sparked an hour-long tarmac standoff until the 103 passengers and seven crew members walked away unharmed.
Mexican investigators struggled Thursday with the question: How did Flores get his fake bomb through airport security in Cancún, the flight’s origin, and was he mentally ill and destined for a psychiatric hospital?
Pilot Ricardo Rios said the ordeal began about 1 p.m. Wednesday when a flight attendant told him a passenger had a bomb. The man was demanding to speak with him and wanted the plane, which was approaching Mexico City, to circle seven times. The hijacker also needed to speak with President Felipe Calderon.
Rios said he didn’t have enough fuel to circle the city and radioed the control tower that they were being hijacked.
After the plane landed and taxied to a cleared section of the airport, Corzo, at the back of the aircraft, tried to reason with Flores.
There must be another way, Corzo told Flores, looking deep into his eyes. It’s not worth it. Flores agreed to release women and children.
Minutes later, after the fake time bomb had counted down to zero, masked police stormed the aircraft with guns drawn and grabbed Flores.
