Suicidal pilot wanted to join dead astronaut

[dArKeR]

An amatuer pilot who commandeered a plane and circled Frankfurt, raising fears of a terrorist strike, said on Friday that he had only wanted to kill himself out of love for a dead American astronaut.

Apologising in court for his actions, Franz Strambach said that he had not meant to spread fear or to crash the light aircraft into a skyscraper, but to ditch it into the Main river.

"I wanted the world to know that I was putting an end to my earthly life in order to go to Judith," he explained.

During the January 5 drama, as his plane seemed to hover menacingly around Frankfurt's skyscrapers, the psychology student said in a television interview that he wanted to honour Judith Resnik, who died in the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster.

The court, granting a request by prosecutors, ordered that Strambach remain under psychiatric care for the foreseeable future.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=ct2003110721272861P450620&set_id=1

I heard Carlyle is trying to recruit this guy!

[DUreader]

1. Medical care instead of jail?

These countries need to learn how to deal with terra/ sarcasm off