VANCOUVER, British Columbia — A Canadian guy has been charged with hijacking a small aircraft after he led to a safety scare at Vancouver’s airport this week.
The Royal Canadian Fixed Police stated Thursday Shaheer Cassim, 39, has been charged with hijacking, constituting terrorism, over the incident Tuesday that noticed the North American Aerospace Protection Command scramble F-15 fighter jets earlier than the aircraft safely landed.
The RCMP stated he seized keep an eye on of a Cessna at Victoria Global Airport on Vancouver Island via threatening a flight trainer, earlier than flying about 40 miles (64 kilometers) to Vancouver.
“Investigators have decided the suspect acted with an ideological cause to disrupt airspace,” stated Sgt. Tammy Lobb in a observation overdue Wednesday.
A person with the similar identify and who resembles Cassim posted on social media that he was once a “messenger of Allah” and a “Messiah” despatched to save lots of humanity from local weather alternate.
He stated “the Angel Gabriel seemed earlier than me and gave me a message from Allah.”
Cassim’s final submit warns about “abrupt runaway world warming” that may motive people to move extinct inside a couple of years.
Cassim additionally stated within the submit that he’s “Sam Carana,” who runs the “Arctic Information” weblog that describes itself as a spot the place individuals “all proportion a deep worry about the way in which local weather alternate is unfolding within the Arctic and the risk that this poses for the arena at massive.”
His Fb profile says he was once hired from 2008 to 2010 via now-defunct KD Air, a small airline according to Vancouver Island.
The airline’s former homeowners, Diana and Lars Banke, stated in an interview Wednesday that Cassim was once one of the crucial smartest and very best pilots they ever labored with, calling him a quick learner who was once very smart.
However Lars Banke stated Cassim left the airline once you have “bored” after which went to clinical faculty. He additionally stated Cassim believed the arena was once coming to an finish.
Diana Banke stated she was once “very shocked” to listen to of Cassim’s fees, announcing he was once rather younger when he labored for them and was once “like a child.“
Lars Banke stated he recalled that Cassim was once moderately desirous about environmentalism, however he was once ignorant of any roughly non secular ideals.
“He by no means spoke faith with us,” Diana Banke stated.
“I’m in point of fact shocked that he would’ve completed one thing like this,” she added.
In 2012, Cassim held a information convention earlier than happening a cross-country bicycle journey to lift consciousness for world warming.
British Columbia Premier David Eby stated when requested concerning the incident Thursday that it was once a “atypical second,” and the truth that it ended and not using a extra important disruption on the airport is a “testomony” to the ability of responders who talked the suspect down.
