Two men accused of hijacking an Ethiopian Airlines plane before it crashed, killing 127 people, may have been innocent passengers and could be released, the government said Monday.
The two men arrested at a hospital Saturday were misidentified as two of the three hijackers, said Dgouma Ibrahim, spokesman for the Internal Ministry. She said they may be set free Tuesday.When the two suspects were shown to the first officer on the flight, Yonas Mekuria, he told police they weren't the hijackers, Ibrahim said Monday.
The men were arrested at the central Moroni hospital, where survivors of the crash were initially taken. They remained in police custody.
A third hijacker died in the crash, and officials have identified his body, Ibrahim said. His identity has not been disclosed.
Ibrahim said that if the two arrested men are determined not to have been hijackers, it would mean all three hijackers died in Saturday's crash.
Recovery workers early Monday dragged a large section of the wreckage of the hijacked Ethiopian Airlines jet out of the azure waters of this beach resort.
Four of the 52 people pulled alive from the wreckage on Saturday have died, the airline said, raising the death toll to 127. The survivors include the pilot and co-pilot.
Flight 961, which left the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa en route to the Ivory Coast, crash-landed in the Indian Ocean on Saturday. It was one of history's deadliest air hijackings. The motive remains unclear.
Military police Capt. Mohamed Fakridine said about 80 bodies had been recovered by Monday afternoon. He was unsure whether all the remaining bodies could be retrieved. Three bodies remained trapped in the plane's cockpit, which was submerged offshore.
Survivors have been flown to hospitals across the region, including 25 who were taken to Nairobi, Kenya, Sunday night.
The three hijackers who stormed into the cockpit soon after the plane took off had demanded they be taken to Australia and refused to allow the pilot to stop to refuel.
"They said, `We escaped from prison. We are against the government. We are hijacking the plane. We have an explosive. If anybody moves, we'll explode it,' " Ethiopian passenger Bisrat Alemu said.
As the Boeing 767's fuel tanks emptied, the pilot, Capt. Leul Abate, pleaded with the hijackers to let him land the jet at an airport in Moroni, capital of the Comoros Islands east of Mozambique.
"He wanted to go there, but they wouldn't let him," Mekuria told The Associated Press from his hospital bed, where he was being treated for cuts and bruises.
"I guess they understood," the co-pilot said. "But they didn't give a damn."
Finally, the pilot went on the public address system himself to announce that the jet was running out of fuel.
One engine had stopped and the other would shortly, the pilot told the passengers. He was going to try to ditch the plane in the sea.
The hijackers fought the pilot for control of the aircraft in the last minutes aloft, the co-pilot said. Back in the cabin, Bisrat said, "People were screaming. Some were praying."
"We knew that we were going to die," said N.B. Surti, a passenger from Bombay, India. He said he was determined to survive.
"I fought through all the bodies and grabbed a broken part of the plane," he said.
The pilot managed to bring the airliner down about 500 yards from shore, enabling tourists and island residents to reach survivors quickly.