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Sunday, Oct 15, 2006
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Pilot comes face to face with hijacker

Mumbai: For the former Air India pilot, Umesh Saxena, Saturday will be a day he can never forget as he came face to face with the ex-mercenary who hijacked the plane he was flying 25 years ago.

Peter Duffy, who met Mr. Saxena at his home here, had threatened to kill him and 79 other passengers on November 25, 1981, when he along with a group of 44 mercenaries hijacked a Boeing 707 from the Seychelles airport. They had ordered Mr. Saxena to fly to Durban or face death for him and all his passengers.

"I hold no grudges against him," Mr. Saxena said.

"He had to make use of us to get out of the island," he said as the two men shook hands over glasses of beer.

Duffy, who served 20 months in a South Africa jail for the hijack, said: "I always wanted to meet Saxena. When we landed at the Durban airport, I promised him that we would meet again." Mr. Saxena also narrated how Duffy came across an airhostess of the hijacked plane, on a flight to Durban in 1994. He expressed his desire to meet Duffy again.

Duffy, on a visit to India at the instance of a friend, said he wanted to fulfil his promise to Mr. Saxena. — PTI

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