Yesterday, the most prominent media outlets across the world were focused on Malta and the unusual events which were taking place on the runway of Malta’s International Airport.
Unsurprisingly, during yesterday’s events, people became very active on social media, particularly on Facebook and Twitter. Watch events unfolding on the television, University student Beppe Galea, who also forms part of the SDM Executive board as International Officer, opted to leave the comfort of his apartment and head to the airport to get a closer look.
“I left my apartment at around noon and I arrived at the airport around half an hour later. At the time police-presence at the airport was extremely high,” explained Beppe Galea in exclusive comments which he gave to this newspaper. Galea explained that in order to get a better view he walked towards the "old airport’, close to the Lufthansa Technik, where the hijacked plane was situated.
“Getting there, I started posting constant Tweets, where I purposely inserted "#hijack’ in each update that I posted. Malta’s Prime Minister had just Tweeted that passengers were about to be released from the plane and members from both the Armed Forces of Malta and the Police Force started flooding in from where I was standing,” told Galea.
Following various Tweets from Galea, at around 13:45, BBC News reporter Ahmer Khawaja contacted Galea via Twitter, acknowledging him that she was from BBC News and requested his contact details.
“Needless to say, it is a great experience! It isn’t a common occurrence that you get approached by a BBC journalist,” concluded Galea.
Yesterday, Galea was interviewed twice on BBC news, the first time at 15:00 and the second time at around 19:00. Amongst other topics, he spoke about Malta’s geographical position as he also made a reference to the hijacked EgyptAir plane, which landed on Malta’s runway in November 1985.
