A would-be hijacker surrendered to the authorities yesterday after releasing the last of more than 180 hostages whom he had seized hours earlier aboard a Canadian charter jet in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
The suspect, described as “a troubled young man” who had demanded to be flown to Cuba, breached security at about 10pm on Sunday to force his way aboard the CanJet charter flight at Sangster International Airport in Jamaica’s prime tourist resort.
A shot was fired as the drama unfolded, but no one was wounded, a senior police official said.
CanJet said the incident aboard flight 918, involving a Boeing 737- 800 aircraft with 182 passengers and crew, occurred after it made a scheduled landing in Montego Bay en route from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Kent Woodside, CanJet vice- president, told a pre-dawn news conference in Halifax that all 174 passengers and two crew members had been safely removed from the aircraft, but six crew were still on the plane.
After tense negotiations, the gunman, local man Stephen Fray, freed his hostages unharmed and surrendered to police