Holy Air Piracy!

It is starting to look like the guy who highjacked the AeroMexico flight from Santa Cruz, Bolivia to Mexico City after a stopover in Cancun had a co-conspirator in Jesus, though I don’t remember anything about “Blessed are they that threaten to blow up airplanes for My sake” in the New Testament.

José Marc Pereyra Flores (earlier reports had his name wrong), who threatened to blow up the plane with what turned out to be two bottles of Jumex-brand fruit juice (flavor not revealed) said he was on a mission from God. Some reports say the Rev. was just reading his ticket upside down, seeing today´s date (09/09/09) as the mark of the beast: 666.  He needed to personally speak to Mexican president Felipe Calderón, and warn him — and Mexicans — of an impending earthquake that would only be averted if the entire nation joined him in prayer.

The flight was diverted to Benito Juarez airport in Mexico City, and moved to the Presidential hanger, where President Calderón did met the plane, along with armed federal officers, who led Pereyra (and reportedly five others in his party) away in handcuffs.

Pereyra and his holy commandos were said to be Bolivians, but the Bolivian Ambassador denied this initially, on the logical grounds that Bolivians can’t afford to fly to Cancun.  Later reports say Pereyra is a Mexican resident.  Naturally, foreign reports have to say something about narcotics when they write anything about Mexico, so they mention that Flores is said to have been a drug addict.  Burro Hall went off the deep end, talking about Al Qaeda (hopefully, tongue in cheek), though I’d expect anything coming out of Santa Cruz to more likely involve home-grown neo-fascists than the points east of the Mediterranean.

There is a video of Pereyra — which seems to part of a series of testimonials from the “saved” — showing off his skills with a pistola, and talking about having been a hitman in Bolivia — but I´m gonna go out on a limb, and just stay the guy is most likely nothing more than a full-blown loon.

There haven’t been any more than the normal earthquakes, which we can take to be a “no comment” from God.