Mehmet Bal, an administrative assistant in the Faculty of Engineering, was aboard the hijacked plane which was scheduled to fly from İstanbul to Ankara on March 28. Bilkent News interviewed Mehmet Bal upon his return from an Educational Fair in Antalya with a connection in İstanbul.
Bal was on a flight departing from Antalya Friday evening; he was supposed to arrive in Ankara later that night. Bal said the passengers on the plane could see their route on the screen, and thus he was aware the plane was going back to İstanbul instead of to the original destination, Ankara. The pilot told the passengers that they had not received permission to land at Ankara, and since it was clearly seen on the screen that the plane was going well past İstanbul, the passengers began to panic. When he got suspicious, Bal asked a stewardess if the plane was being hijacked and she said ‘yes’. After a couple of minutes, the hijacker explained that they were going to land in Athens.
Bal was supposed to attend a workshop at Bilkent Saturday morning. The first thing Bal did - before even calling his family- was to call Seher Aktaş, Dean of Summer School secretary, to say that the plane was hijacked and that he wouldn’t be able to come to the workshop the next day.
Mehmet Bal’s sense of responsibility for his work is commendable. Bal and all the passengers, in the end, arrived safely back on Saturday morning at Ankara International Airport. It was quite an adventure.

Bahar Savcı (TRIN/III)