Piracy reached record levels in 2010


Pirate hijackings in the Red Sea and nearby waters reached their highest levels ever, the Associated Press reports.

Pirate hijackings worldwide claimed 1,181 hostages and 53 vessels, a rise of ten percent since 2009. Of these, 49 ships were taken by Somali gunmen in the Red Sea or nearby waters in the Indian Ocean. Somali piracy has been the biggest problem area despite an international fleet of warships trying to stop it. Somalis have taken four more ships so far in 2011 and currently hold 31 ships and 713 people captive.

Somali pirates generally use speedboats to come up alongside freighters, tankers, or smaller ships and then threaten to open fire if the captain doesn’t stop. The pirates then board the vessel and radio in a ransom demand that can amount to millions of dollars. Prisoners are generally not hurt, although eight were killed last year. Usually the ransom is paid.

Because naval vessels have been able to stop some attacks near the Somali coast, pirates have moved operations further into the Indian Ocean where they’re harder to catch. Other problem areas include Nigerian, Bangladeshi, and Indonesian waters.

Somali pirates claim they have been forced into piracy because their fishermen have been pushed out of work by illegal fishing by foreign vessels and illegal dumping of toxic waste by big corporations.

If you’re worried about piracy, stay away from the Red Sea area, and check out our handy tips on what to do if pirates board your ship.

[Photo courtesy Mass communication Specialist 2nd Class Jason R. Zalasky , U.S. Navy.]

Was 9-9-09 a day for weirdos or what? Think religious Mexican hijacker and numerology

Yesterday I wrote a post about travel weirdos who inspire us to think and travel outside the box. After I wrote that post, I heard on the radio about a hijacker in Mexico who threatened an Aeromexico plane with what turned out to be a fake bomb as the plane was traveling between Cancun and Mexico City. As Katie posted, all’s well that end’s well. Passengers weren’t hurt and the hijacker was apprehended after the plane landed.

The news version of the hijacking that I heard is a nod towards the travel weirdness of yesterday. Here’s the scoop about the hijacker, a man named Jose Flores, that might have you glancing suspiciously at passengers boarding your plane …

According to the NPR story I heard, the reason Flores, a “Bible-carrying religious fanatic,” hijacked the plane was to get the attention of Felipe Calderon, Mexico’s President, to tell him about an impending earthquake. The hijacker knows about this earthquake because he saw it in a vision — a “divine revelation,” if you will. The reason he hijacked the plane yesterday was because of yesterday’s date. See? The date was weird. A vision told him so. Plus, it’s upside down 6s, so what do you expect? (Personally, I think the date looks like people dancing, but that’s just me.)

What adds to the weirdness of this story is that most passengers didn’t even know there was a hijacker in their midst until after the plane landed and they saw all the security vehicles and armed people surrounding the plane. The hijacked plane, from what I gather, took off from Cancun and landed in Mexico City as intended.

For an interesting analysis of yesterday’s date, check out this article in the Times of India. Yesterday’s date isn’t the only one that has attracted attention.

**correction. The hijacker was Bolivian, not Mexican.

New airline idea: goal is to beat the odds

Columnist Jeremy Clarkson, at The Sun, has come up with a brilliant airline concept: take it easy, and play the odds. He laments the fact that it takes “about six years” to check in and considers the security process to be troublesome. They won’t even let you keep your toothpaste!

Of course, we have all this security in place for a reason. There are many threats to safety … and it’s not just terrorism. We’ve had smokers on Saudi flights, and drunk passengers remain a perpetual problem. Yet, what are the odds of being killed by international terrorism? Clarkson puts it at about the same as drowning in a bathtub. Since the 1960s, he continues, eating peanuts and being struck by lightning have proved more lethal. Worldwide, there are approximately 70,000 flights every day, with only 50 or so hijacked in the past 40 years.

With no security, this number is likely to increase. Even if thousands of planes are hijacked a day, he observes, more than 60,000 will land as usual.

This leaves the unfortunate question, though. Mr. Clarkson: are you willing to take those odds? One in seven?

Not me …

Will the real D.B. Cooper please stand up

I just came across a “confession letter” purporting to be from the infamous D.B. Cooper. In case you haven’t heard of this urban legend (except it’s true, so guess it’s not an urban legend), D.B. Cooper is the nom de guerre for the 1971 hijacker who parachuted into history with $200,000 in cash. He’s never been heard from again.

Every once in a while, like this week, you have a kook claiming to be the long-lost Cooper. Although the mystery hasn’t been definitively solved, there was an excellent in-depth article in an October issue of New York that gave a very educated guess (probably right).

It’s a hoot to think what would happen if D.B. Cooper pulled the stunt in 2007. One thing’s for sure, CNN would have enough filler for the next month.