They were angry, but stayed calm and -- most importantly -- they fought back.
The passengers and crew of a domestic Qantas flight this week saved themselves from a possible crash by overpowering a man who stabbed two flight attendants as he tried to break into the cockpit.
After the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in the US, air travelers the world over are now more emboldened to take risks and confront danger head on.
"We have changed. People do react now," Prime Minister John Howard said on Melbourne radio 3AW.
"In a typical Australian fashion they have taken the initiative and done something to subdue this [man] themselves. I am very proud of them," he said.
Suspect David Mark Robinson, 40, has been charged with one count of attempted hijacking and two counts of attacking members of the air crew. He could go to prison for life if convicted.
He is accused of smuggling two sharpened wooden stakes -- which metal detectors of security guards couldn't find -- on board the Qantas Boeing 717 that took off from Melbourne Airport for Launceston on the island state of Tasmania on Thursday.
Robinson -- who recently left his computer analyst job and is described by a neighbor as "a good man" -- was ordered to undergo psychiatric assessment following media reports that he had talked about "God's will" and "Armageddon" after his arrest.
Graham Ashton, the Australian Federal Police agent heading the case, refused to comment on the reports, but said that Robinson was not a terrorist and had admitted that he had operated alone.
"He gave us the full details as to everything we needed to know," Ashton said, declining to elaborate on a likely motive.
Howard this week said that al-Qaeda had plotted attacks here in the months before Sept. 11, 2001, and the nation was shocked by the deaths of dozens of Australians in a terrorist bombing on the Indonesia resort island of Bali last year.
In Australia, details are well known about how passengers fought hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93, crashing it into a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, and how those on an American Airlines plane over the Atlantic overpowered convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid in December that year.
The drama that confronted those aboard the Qantas jetliner on flight QF1737 that had just taken off from Melbourne on Thursday was chillingly similar.
The main hero was Qantas flight attendant Greg Khan. He blocked the way of the would-be hijacker from getting to the locked door of the cockpit even as he was repeatedly stabbed.
With blood flowing from his wounds, Khan refused to yield until after other crew and passengers joined the fight and bound the attacker's hands and feet.
"I pushed him back to row six while he still had me in this bear hug and kept up his frenzy of stabbing the back of my head," Khan told a packed news conference, his face still swollen from his injuries.
"Once he was down the other guys on the flight and a gentleman that we had on board restrained him," said Khan, a flight attendant for seven years.
"A paramedic took me back to the front of the aircraft and started looking after my head. I've got 16 stitches," he said.
Khan and another flight attendant, 25-year-old Denise Hickson, both suffered stab wounds.
"We're well trained on how to do these things, but adrenalin and instinct kicked in as well," Khan said. "Once I got this guy down and I was on top of him, I knew it was all right because I wasn't being hit in the head anymore," he said.
Inside the cockpit Pilot Corey Purves initially thought a trolley had bumped against its locked doors, not realizing that at 2,400m, his plane was under attack.
"Within 40 seconds of that initial bump we got a call through to the cockpit and we were then made aware that there was a security threat against the safety of the aircraft," Purves told reporters.
He turned the plane around immediately and it landed safely back at Melbourne airport where the suspect was arrested.
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