The armed hijacker of an African aircraft was overpowered by passengers and crew last night when the captain of the jet deliberately braked suddenly on landing in the Canary Islands.

Ahmedou Mohamed Lemine, a 20-year veteran of Air Mauritania, realised during his conversations with the 31-year-old hijacker, who was seeking asylum in France, that his assailant did not speak French and that, on the moment of landing, he would be only person not wearing a seatbelt.

So in the minutes before touching down at Gandó Airport, on Gran Canaria, Captain Lemine briefed his mainly-French speaking passengers and crew over the public address system that he would slam on the brakes as soon as he landed and then quickly accelerate, hoping to knock the man, who had two automatic pistols, off his feet.

The plan worked and, according to Spanish officials today, the hijacker, named as Mohamed Abderraman, tumbled over and dropped one of his guns before six men, including a Mauritanian mayor, stormed the pilot's cabin and threw a pot of boiling water on his groin and chest.

The Spanish Interior Ministry said today that the Air Mauritania Boeing 737 took off from the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, yesterday evening carrying 71 passengers and a crew of eight. As the aircraft started to descend for a scheduled stop in Nouadhibou in the north of the country, the hijacker rose from his seat in the fifth row and demanded that the jet change course for Paris.

When he was told that the aircraft did not have the fuel to reach France, the hijacker asked the captain to land in the city of Djala in the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara -- it remains unclear whether the man is Mauritanian or from the disputed territory -- but the Moroccan authorities refused permission.

It was as the aircraft continued to its original destination that Captain Lemine and his crew began to form their plan. Speaking in French, which is commonly spoken in Mauritania, he asked women and children to move to the back of the jet and for a group of men to ready for the unsettled landing. A flight attendant boiled a kettle.

After the landing, 20 passengers and the hijacker were taken to hospital for minor injuries. Two passengers were also slightly scalded by the boiling water thrown on the assailant, according to the Spanish newspaper, El Pais.

Passengers and authorities described their fear that the hijacker, who was not thought to be affiliated to any extremist group, was a terrorist. His hijacking coincided with the first day of the trial in Spain of 29 people accused of organising the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

“We were afraid. We thought it was people from al-Qaeda or the Algerian GSPC who were going to cut our throats,” Aicha Mint Sidi, a 45-year-old woman who was on the plane told the Associated Press, referring to the an extremist Islamist group.

“I trembled during and after the hijacking. I thought the plane was going to blow up any minute, either in mid-air or on landing,” said another passenger, Dahi Ould Ali, 52.

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