Authorities on the Philip S.W. Goldson Worldwide Airport (P.G.I.A.) say they have been alerted to a U.S. man who was hijacking a small plane in Belize on Thursday.
The person stabbed two passengers and a pilot, earlier than one of many stabbed passengers fatally shot him, in keeping with officers in Belize and the US. The passenger was licensed to hold a firearm and later turned his weapon over to the police.
“We’re praying for him,” Chester Williams, Belize police commissioner, informed reporters. “He’s our hero.”
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A view of the Philip S.W. Goldson Worldwide Airport in Belize Metropolis, taken on April 17, 2025. (JOSE A. SANCHEZ/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
Williams recognized the hijacker as Akinyela Taylor and mentioned he was a U.S. army veteran, a report by The Related Press mentioned. U.S. officers couldn’t verify the Belize police commissioner’s assertion that Taylor was a army veteran.
The air flight Cessna Caravan V3HIG from Corozal to San Pedro had 14 passengers and a pair of crew members onboard, the assertion from P.G.I.A. mentioned.
A full emergency was declared instantly after the incident began and the plane circled in random instructions for roughly two hours till lastly touchdown safely on the P.G.I.A., in keeping with an announcement by the Belize Airport Concession Firm.
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Vacationers queue on the Tropic Air counter at Philip S.W. Goldson Worldwide Airport in Belize Metropolis on April 17, 2025. (JOSE A. SANCHEZ/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
U.S. State Division spokesperson Tammy Bruce mentioned at a information briefing in Washington that officers have been nonetheless gathering details about what occurred.
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“Horrifying,” she mentioned. “We’re grateful, I feel all of us are, that it didn’t flip right into a mass casualty occasion with, I imagine, over a dozen folks on the airplane. Clearly we all know a couple of particulars. We don’t know rather more.”
U.S. officers mentioned they didn’t know the motive for Taylor’s hijacking however have been working with Belizean authorities to find out what occurred.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
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