Hijack Drama in Mexico

Jasmine Anderson
9.10.09
1:48am

Usually when you are returning home from vacation you expect a relaxing trip back to your destination. This was not the case for the passengers on the Aeromexico Flight 576 coming from Cancun, going to Mexico City. During the flight back to Mexico City, Jose Flores Pereira threatened to blow up the plane if he was unable to speak with President Calderon. Pereira lied saying there were other hijackers, when he was the only one. He also claimed he had a bomb, which he did not. Pereira’s reasoning behind the hijacking was that he had a revelation that Mexico was under terrible danger and threatened by an earthquake. He claimed his three accomplices were, “the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost.” He declared that Christ was coming soon and picked 9/9/09 because it is the reverse of 666. Pereira is a previous drug user with criminal charges, but now claims he is a gospel singer and a preacher. Luckily Pereira’s “bomb” was only a juice can with some lights in it, and no one was hurt.

I think this is absolutely ridiculous and somewhat amusing. I’m actually never surprised at the amount of craziness in people nowadays. But, I’m glad this situation was not as serious as it could have been. I do not agree with Pereira’s reasoning behind this hijacking, not saying that there’s any plausible reason to hijack a plane. But pulling the “God told me to do it,” I just don’t understand that. There are so many other things he could have done to get his “point” across to Mexico. After the September 11th airplane hijackings I don’t know why he thought it was okay for him to “play” like that, although he was very serious looking at his reasoning’s. This also reminds me of how some people try to use religion as the reason why they committed a certain crime or etc. Your religion didn’t make you do anything. You control your actions, not your religion or whatever god you make worship (if any).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8247472.stm