Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Fly Air Rum

No false advertising here:

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- A chartered jet carrying 289 Gambian soccer fans pretended it needed to make an emergency landing so they could watch their team compete in the FIFA Under 17 World Championships, officials said Wednesday.

The plane, claiming to be low on fuel, landed Tuesday near the stadium in Peru's northern coast city of Piura.

"It truly was a scam," said Betty Maldonado, a spokeswoman for Peru's aviation authority, CORPAC. "They tricked the control tower, saying they were low on fuel."

Emergency crews were scrambled ahead of the unscheduled landing by the Lockhead L1011 Tri-Star, owned by Air Rum Ltd., Maldonado said.

The Air Rum plane, which she said was chartered by Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, should have made its approach to the capital, Lima, but instead flew directly to Piura, entering Peruvian air space "without permission."

2 comments:

Eiranai said...

I don`t think there is anything in the world scarier than a soccer fan. These fans not only destroy cities after their teams lose but also apparently can stop airplanes. Just imagine if soccer fans got nuclear weapons!

Steve said...

Now if only the plane had been filled with United Kingdom soccer hooligans than this could have been the perfect soccer news story, as the town would have been burned to the ground with the only pause in the pillage taking place when Oasis's 'WonderWall' was played.