Aircraft hijacking is the unlawful seizure of an aircraft by an individual or a group. Dating from the earliest of hijackings, most cases involve the pilot being forced to fly according to the hijacker's demands. There have also been incidents where the hijackers have overpowered the flight crew, made unauthorized entry into the cockpit and flown them into buildings – most notably in the September 11 attacks – and in several cases, planes have been hijacked by the official pilot or co-pilot; e.g., Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702.
D. B. Cooper is a media epithet for an unidentified man who hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727 aircraft, in United States airspace on November 24, 1971. During the flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, the hijacker told a flight attendant he was armed with a bomb, demanded $200,000 in ransom and requested four parachutes upon landing in Seattle. After releasing the passengers in Seattle, the hijacker instructed the flight crew to refuel the aircraft and begin a second flight to Mexico City, with a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada. About 30 minutes after taking off from Seattle, the hijacker opened the aircraft's aft door, deployed the staircase, and parachuted into the night over southwestern Washington. The hijacker has never been found or conclusively identified.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1961.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1965.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1966.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1970.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1972.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1971.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1973.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1974. 1974 had been deemed as “the single worst year in airline history” although this has since been surpassed.
Francis Xavier Aloysius James Jeremiah Keenan Wynn was an American character actor. His expressive face was his stock-in-trade; and though he rarely carried the lead role, he had prominent billing in most of his film and television roles.
City of Hope is a 1991 American drama film written, directed, and edited by John Sayles. The film features Vincent Spano, Stephen Mendillo, and Chris Cooper.
Hijack! is a 1973 American made-for-television action drama thriller film directed by Leonard Horn and starring David Janssen, Keenan Wynn and Lee Purcell.
Aeroflot Flight 3739 was a Soviet domestic passenger flight from Irkutsk to Leningrad with a stopover in Kurgan. On 8 March 1988, after the Tupolev Tu-154 operating the flight had left Kurgan, it was hijacked by the Ovechkin family, whose members sought to defect from the Soviet Union.
Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 710 was a Boeing 737-200 flight between the California cities of Sacramento and Burbank, with a stop in San Francisco, that was hijacked by two Bulgarian nationals on July 5, 1972, shortly after take-off from Sacramento Airport. The hijackers demanded $800,000, two parachutes and to be taken to the Soviet Union. The plane landed at the San Francisco Airport, then took off after 20 minutes and spent the next hour circling while the hijackers waited for the airline to accept their demands.
On 1 December 1988, a LAZ-687 bus carrying around thirty pupils and one teacher from school 42 in Ordzhonikidze, Soviet Union was hijacked by five armed criminals, led by Pavel Yakshiyants.
Vietnam Airlines Flight 850 was an international scheduled passenger flight from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City. On 4 September 1992, the Airbus A310-222 serving the flight was hijacked by Ly Tong, a former pilot in the South Vietnam Air Force. He then dropped anti-communist leaflets over Ho Chi Minh City before parachuting out. Vietnamese security forces later arrested him on the ground. The aircraft landed safely, and no one on board was injured. He was released from a Hanoi prison in 1998.
The apparent success and instant notoriety of the hijacker known as D. B. Cooper in November 1971 resulted in over a dozen copycat hijackings within the next year all using a similar template to that established by Cooper. Like Cooper, the plan would be to hijack an aircraft, demand a ransom, and then parachute from that aircraft as a method of escape. To combat this wave of extortion hijackings, aircraft were fitted with eponymous "Cooper Vanes," specifically designed to prevent the aft staircase from being lowered in-flight. The Cooper Vane, as well as the widespread implementation of other safety measures such as the installation of metal detectors throughout American airports, would spell the end of the Cooper copycats.
Paul Joseph Cini is a Canadian plane hijacker who is noted as the first person to plan a skyjacking with a planned escape by use of a parachute. In November 1971 Cini boarded Air Canada Flight 812, and—posing as an international terrorist—proceeded to hijack the plane. During the next eight hours, the plane made several mid-air diversions from its original flight plan that included a stop in the United States in order to pickup ransom money. Cini, who often became agitated during the event, was kept calm by a flight attendant, Mary Dohey, who had a psychological background before working for the airline. The hijacker was overpowered by Dohey and two additional members of the flight crew when he attempted to bail from the plane over the Alberta, Canada, wilderness.
