Officers who entered the cabin of the plane at about 6:40 a.m. local time disarmed and arrested the gunman, identified as Stephen Fray of Montego Bay, and freed six crew members being held hostage, the Jamaica Information Service said in a statement posted on its Web site. None of the aircraft’s passengers or crew was hurt. The gunman boarded the CanJet Airlines Boeing 737 late yesterday at the Montego Bay airport as it was being loaded, and demanded to fly to Cuba, the airline said in a statement on its Web site.
The plane, operated for Transat Tours Canada, was already scheduled to fly to Halifax, Nova Scotia, via Santa Clara, Cuba. The aircraft’s 174 passengers, all Canadians, and two members of the crew were released, while six crew members were held hostage, said Kent Woodside, CanJet vice president, in a televised news conference today.
The gunman fired one shot while he was on the gangway leading to the plane, Woodside said. The security breach that allowed an armed man onto the aircraft is being investigated, Woodside said. The hijacker was described as a young man in his 20s with “mental challenges,” Daryl Vaz, Jamaica’s minister for information, said in a statement.
The gunman’s father, other relatives and friends were involved in negotations, Vaz said. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived late yesterday for a two-day state visit following the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Dolmetsch at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net; Brian Lysaght in London at blysaght@bloomberg.net.