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Gendarmerie training punctures Air Austral B773 at Reunion on Mar 8th 2010

An Air Austral Boeing 777-300 registration F-ONOU parked at Saint Denis' Gillot Airport (Reunion) was being used for a training exercise by Reunion's Overseas Gendarmerie simulating hijackers had taken hostages aboard the aircraft. The police forces attempting to free the hostages brought stairs to the right hand front door, got up the stairs and opened the door for a surprise attack. But one of the policemen had live bullets instead of blank cartridges in his gun when he stormed the aircraft, and thus shot through the window of the left hand front entrance with the bullet going through all panes of the window. Nobody was injured.

The airplane however had to remain on the ground to have that window replaced and therefore could not perform its scheduled flight UU-975 to Paris Charles de Gaulle (France) scheduled to depart in the evening. Air Austral instead dispatched a Boeing 777-200 registration F-OMAY, which however could not accommodate all booked passengers, so that a number had to be rebooked onto other flights.

Aviation Herald, Tuesday, Mar 9th 2010 08:30Z