I Was Kidnapped by Idiots

If anyone would like any further reading about the intersection between brutality and extreme incompetence, I recommend this article about Ethiopian flight 961, where a group hijacked a regional flight from Ethiopia to Kenya and tried to divert it to Australia. https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-dead-mans-gambit-the...

> For the approximately two hour flight to Nairobi, the crew had uplifted only about three and a half hours of fuel, which would not get them even half way to Australia. Leul attempted to explain that they would have to stop for more fuel before he could comply with the hijackers’ request, perhaps in Mombasa, Kenya, but to his surprise, they refused to believe him. Instead, one of the hijackers retrieved a copy of the Ethiopian Airlines in-flight magazine “Selamta,” which contained specifications for the company’s Boeing 767s, and pointed out that according to the publication, the 767–200ER could stay in the air for up to 11 hours. Leul spent a considerable amount of time trying to explain that the 11-hour figure is only achievable with a full fuel load, and he attempted to demonstrate using the fuel quantity indicating system, with a comparison between their actual fuel load and what an 11-hour fuel load ought to look like. And yet, despite his conscientious and respectful efforts, the hijackers remained convinced that he was bluffing — that his proposal to stop for fuel in Mombasa was in fact a trap to hand them over to the authorities. If he didn’t fly directly to Australia, they insisted, they would blow up the plane and everyone in it.