The French language and a hero for our times

Now that I am trying to improve my French, and have already written a lot on this blog about Muslims in this age of terror, here is my idea of a contemporary hero.

Pilot Ahmedou Mohamed Lemine, a 20-year-veteran of Air Mauritania.

Lemine's Boeing 747 was hijacked by a lone gunman waving two pistols when it took off from the capital of Mauritania bound for the Canary Islands. While talking to the hijackers the pilot realized that he could not understand French.

So he got on the intercom and told the passengers and crew in French of the ploy he was going to try: brake hard upon landing, then speed up abruptly. The idea was to catch the hijacker off balance, and have crew members and men sitting in the front rows of the plane jump him.

It worked perfectly. When the hijacker was caught off guard he fell and dropped his pistols. The flight attendants then threw boiling water from a coffee machine in his face and at his chest, and some 10 people jumped on the man and beat him.

Not quite United 93, but still, A for courage, A for cleverness, A for passenger participation and A+ for using French to do it!