Another week, another hooded criminal steps off an airplane. The front page of Six O’Clock This Morning(今晨6点) carries the story of a man that was caught by police 44 hours after making a fake bomb claim and causing an airplane to make an emergency landing. The front page neatly contrasts this “personal farce” with the “international farce” of a Japanese team that yesterday carried out a “survey” in the waters off the Diaoyu Islands.
In the early hours of yesterday morning the second of September, a hooded although very apologetic criminal suspect wearing a t-shirt with the words ‘Live hard’ in English was led off a plane at Wuhan (武汉) airport. Facing the media, all he could say was “I made a mistake”; “Im sorry” and “I regret what I did.”
On the 30th of August, soon after Shenzhen Airlines flight ZH9706 took off from Xiangyang (襄阳) in Hubei province bound for Shenzhen (深圳), customer services at Shenzhen airport received a call from a male caller saying that he had placed a bomb on flight ZH9706 and that it would be exploding in 45 minutes. As a result, the airplane was alerted and made an emergency landing at Tianhe (天河) airport in Wuhan at shortly before midnight. A thorough search of the plane revealed that there was no bomb on board.
An investigation into the incident was launched right away, and 44 hours later the police had the ‘male caller’, who turned out to be a man called Xiong Yi (熊毅) from Dongguan (东莞) in Guangdong. When caught by police, Xiong confessed and apologized profusely, saying that he had followed news of his actions online after his call and was surprised at how large the consequences were. The consequences for Xiong himself might turn out to be unexpectedly large as well, as he is likely to be held criminally responsible as well as face civil liability.
Live hard indeed.
Below are a few other newspaper front pages of today and yesterday that covered the incident.
Update 4/9/12: It was reported yesterday that Xiong Yi’s motive for causing the fake airplane bomb scare was to prevent a creditor from collecting his debt. Not surprising that Xiong was so apologetic, things didnt quite work out as he expected.
Links and sources
Six O’Clock This Morning (“诈弹”嫌犯连说“对不起!”)
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