The Algerian police used night vision devices to identify the lead hijacker, who was Abdul Abdullah Yahia. The French government sent Yahia's mother to plead for him to release the passengers, in the hope that she could persuade her son to give in, but the tactic backfired. One passenger, Kakachi, recalled Yahia becoming enraged by this move. At this point, the hijackers began targeting the French passengers; there were two staff members of the French Embassy in Algiers on board the flight, a secretary and a chef. The hijackers forced the chef, Yannick Beugnet, to plead into the microphone. Through Beugnet, they demanded that unless the Algerian government cleared the A300 for takeoff before 9:30 pm, they would kill one passenger every 30 minutes, starting with Beugnet. They threatened to shoot him and throw him out of the door. The Algerian passengers assured him that the hijackers were bluffing while the French passengers were demanding that the aircraft be allowed to take off. When the 9:30 deadline passed, the hijackers shot the chef and threw his body outside. The door open warning light in the cockpit indicated to the pilots that another passenger had been murdered. Enraged, Captain Delhemme yelled at the Algerian authorities, "See what you get when you play tough?!" The airline knew that the chef had been murdered as it was listening in on the conversations between the aircraft and the control tower. Philippe Legorjus, a former Air France security adviser, said in an interview that the airline employees "lived through event with great emotion". Zahida Kakachi recalled Lotfi calmly trying to convert her and another stewardess to Islam, though Kakachi was only pretending so that she would not enrage him.