{"id":4052,"date":"2025-07-17T23:50:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T23:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/4052\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T23:50:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T23:50:14","slug":"suspect-charged-with-hijacking-in-yvr-incident-used-to-be-a-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/4052\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspect charged with hijacking in YVR incident used to be a pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>The suspect charged with hijacking in connection with an incident at Vancouver International Airport on Tuesday was a pilot more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752731349_272_70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Shaheer Cassim, 39, has been charged with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/hijacking\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">hijacking<\/a> after being accused of stealing a small plane from the Victoria Flying Club, flying it over the Salish Sea and eventually landing it at YVR.<\/p>\n<p>Cassim made a brief court appearance on Wednesday afternoon and remains in custody.<\/p>\n<p>A Facebook page of someone with the same name and image describes himself as a \u201cmessenger of Allah.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am the messiah sent to save humanity from climate change and usher in an era of world peace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This person also writes about <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/climate-change\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">climate change<\/a>, saying the sea ice is going to disappear within two years and humans will eventually go extinct.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The Facebook profile says he was employed from 2008 to 2010 by now-defunct KD Air, a small airline based on Vancouver Island.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752731349_312_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get the day&#8217;s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n<p>The airline\u2019s former owners, Diana and Lars Banke, said in an interview that Cassim was one of the smartest and best pilots they ever worked with, calling him a fast learner who was highly intelligent.<\/p>\n<p>But Lars Banke said Cassim left the airline after getting \u201cbored\u201d and then went to medical school. He also said Cassim believed the world was coming to an end.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-video__image\" alt=\"Click to play video: 'NORAD alerted to small plane \u2018hijacking\u2019 incident at Vancouver airport'\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/WEB_LT_YVR_INCIDENT-PKG_OM01EWLS.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"   data-\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:21<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNORAD alerted to small plane \u2018hijacking\u2019 incident at Vancouver airport\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\tPrevious Video<\/p>\n<p>\t\tNext Video<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11291824\/suspect-charged-hijacking-security-incident-yvr\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752796213_884_cassim-2.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tSuspect charged with hijacking in connection with security incident at YVR\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11290454\/ns-missing-kids-july-16-update-unsolved\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752796214_294_lilly-jack.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tN.S. missing kids: Pink blanket belonging to Lilly being examined, RCMP say\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cassim has been involved in climate activism in the past and in 2012 he held a news conference in Victoria at the start of a cross-country bicycle trek to raise awareness about global warming.<\/p>\n<p>Under the Criminal Code of Canada, a charge of hijacking could mean a sentence of life in prison. The Prosecution Service of Canada has also indicated this charge could come with terrorism implications.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>An order has been made to determine if Cassim is fit to stand trial.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 with files from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Crime<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size The suspect charged with hijacking in connection with an incident&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,2169,2168,44,4952,2167],"class_list":["post-4052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-crime","tag-hijacking","tag-news","tag-shaheer-cassim","tag-vancouver-airport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}