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Comment by Daniel R.Carneiro aviationcombr on September 11, 2011 at 9:15pm

BTW, in 09/29/1988 (13 years before the 9/11!), a VASP captain became a national hero performing a tuneaux and a screw, avoiding an attack almost similar to those practiced in September 11:

VASP flight 375 hijack (Boeing 737-300 PP-SNT)

"Shortly after takeoff, the unemployed tractor driver Raimundo Nonato started to shoot at the door of the pilots' cabin with a caliber 32 gun. Nonato blamed the president José Sarney by shortages that were in itself and Brazil and decided to crash the jet full of passengers on the Planalto Palace. The gunfire injured one passenger and crew, and captain Fernando Murilo de Lima e Silva yielded to the kidnapper. Once in the flight deck, Nonato said to take heading to Brasilia. The co-pilot, triying to get the radio communication receiver, was shoot in the head and died instantly.

For more than three hours, the commander Murilo negotiated with the kidnapper, who flew over Brasilia, Goiania and Anapolis. Given the intransigence of Nonato and the possibility of running out of fuel, he came to make two moves almost suicidal trying to disarm the kidnapper. At first, he put the plane to turn on itself until the tip-head and return to thei original position. Then, a screw, leaving it to fall with the nose down while revolving. This maneuver was so sudden that part of the stabilizer fell of the Boeing over some houses in Goiania. Engineers said that this was the only factory record of this kind of maneuver with a Boeing 737. The stunt was witnessed by an Air Force fighter plane which accompanied the flight and was later reported by the Capt. Murilo which eventually landed in Goiania airport (some 180km - southwest - far from Brasilia). Once grounded, Nonato demanded a smaller plane to escape, but he took three shots by the Special Forces and died a few days later, admitted at the Hospital Saint Genevieve, in Goiania. As he recovered well from injury, death became a mystery that would only be unveiled by the coroner Fortunato Badan Palhares, from the State University of Campinas, who autopsied the body and confirmed he died of infection with sickle cell anemia, a congenital disease."

(source: "Caixa Preta" / "BlackBox" book)

More:
Commander Murilo - the kidnapping of VASP flight 375

The aircraft hijacked was the Boeing 737-317 (23176/1213), which operated for CP Air as C-FCPK, VASP as PP-SNT, Morris Air as EI-CHD and still operates at Southwest as N698SW.