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Post 9/11, I figured that hijackings were a thing of the past. Passengers would rise up and tackle the perps, grabbing them by the hair and engaging in a rough and tumble Boeing Brawl. The captain might emerge, heroically carrying his fire axe, duct-taping the hijackers to a seat, Jack Bauer-style, and order would be restored.

Apparently, you still CAN hijack a plane, after all. Turkish hijackers took over a Turkish Airlines flight from Tirana, Albania, to Istanbul, apparently in protest of the Pope’s upcoming visit to Turkey. The flight was diverted to Brindisi, Italy, escorted by Greek and Italian fighter jets, where the hijackers requested asylum.

Maybe no one stopped the hijackers because they were too nice: The flight attendants were allowed to serve drinks and snacks during the flight, apparently AFTER the hijacking was underway. The hijackers had no obvious weapons, and no one was hurt.

Passengers thought something was odd when they “saw a man wearing track-suit bottoms and a hat go to the cockpit door and pause there, thinking.”

Miss India, Miss Singapore, Miss Malaysia, and Miss Philippines were on the flight, returning from the Globe International 2006 beauty contest in fab-u-lous downtown Tirana.

The lesson: Never trust beauty queens to take down a hijacker. Never.

(image: Valleia)