A Mariel refugee carrying a starter's pistol, two jackknives and scissors tried to hijack an American Airlines jetliner home to Cuba Saturday, but the escaped mental patient was arrested after the plane carrying 157 people landed in Miami nearly out of fuel, the FBI said.
William A. Gavin, chief of the FBI's Miami office, identified the lone hijacker as Pedro Rene Comas-Banos, 37, who has twice escaped from mental hospitals since coming to this country in the Mariel boatlift May 27, 1980, exactly nine years before the hijacking.Gavin said the anniversary of his departure from Cuba and a letter he said he received from his son there may had led to the attempted hijacking of the Boeing 727.
Gavin said Comas-Banos had with him one red carry-on bag that the would-be hijacker said contained a bomb.
The man surrendered peacefully following two hours of negotiations on the ground at the airport, with the plane's passengers clapping as he handed over the bag to an interpreter. The starter's pistol, two pocket knives and scissors were found inside the bag.
Comas-Banos was later charged with air piracy, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison upon conviction, and held without bond at the Metropolitan Correctional Center pending a hearing Tuesday before a federal magistrate. Officials said additional charges would probably be filed.
Ed Stewart, an American Airlines spokesman in Texas, said it had not been determined how the man was able to smuggle the pistol onto the plane. "We're trying to see how large it was and what material it was made of," he said. "It seems like this was a fluke of some kind. Someone made a mistake."
Gavin said Comas-Banos boarded American Airlines Flight 30 to Dallas-Fort Worth in Los Angeles Saturday morning and then changed to Flight 1098 to Miami. There were 150 passengers and seven crew members aboard.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jack Barker said in Atlanta the would-be hijacker handed a flight attendant a note ordering the plane to fly to Cuba at 10:39 a.m. when it was about 15 miles north of Miami.
"It occurred on the approach to Miami International Airport," Barker said. "The pilot declared an emergency and said he needed to go to Havana. He was given clearances to Havana, but 60 miles south of Miami, he said he had fuel problems and returned to Miami."
Gavin confirmed the jetliner was close to running out of fuel. "The plane would not have made it to Cuba," he said.
It landed at a remote corner of the airport, and negotiations began. Comas-Banos, who speaks no English, sat in the rear of the plane and talked through a passenger serving as an interpreter and a flight attendant to the pilot in the cockpit.