Airplane hijackings have occurred since the early days of flight. These can be classified in the following eras: Pre-1929, 1929–1957, 1958–1979, 1980–2000, and 2001–present. Early incidents involved light planes, but this later involved passenger aircraft as
commercial aviation became widespread.
Pre-1929 One of the first accounts of an aircraft hijacking dates to 1919, sometime during the short existence of the
Hungarian Soviet Republic (21 March – 1 August). Hungarian polymath
Baron Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás was a spy for
Austria-Hungary in
World War I, whose defeat and dissolution ceded Nopcsa's native
Transylvania to
Romania. Under the new
socialist state government, Nopcsa and
Bajazid Elmaz Doda (his secretary and boyfriend) were unable to obtain a passport to leave the country. To circumvent this, Nopcsa forged documents from the Ministry of War that convinced the military commander at the on the outskirts of
Budapest to provide him and Doda with a small airplane and a pilot. Somewhere over
Győr, approximately halfway between Budapest and their supposed destination of
Sopron, Franz pulled out a revolver, held it to the pilot's head, and demanded to be flown to
Vienna (then a part of the also transitionary
Republic of German-Austria (12 November 1918 – 10 September 1919)).
1929–1957 Between 1929 and 1957, there were fewer than 20 incidents of reported hijackings worldwide; several occurred in
Eastern Europe. An early but unconfirmed account of hijacking occurred in December 1929. J. Howard "Doc" DeCelles was flying a postal route for a Mexican firm, Transportes Aeras Transcontinentales, ferrying mail from
San Luis Potosí to
Torreon and then on to
Guadalajara.
Saturnino Cedillo, the governor of the state of San Luis Potosí, ordered him to divert. Several other men were also involved, and through an interpreter, DeCelles had no choice but to comply. He was allegedly held captive for several hours under armed guard before being released. The first recorded aircraft hijack took place on February 21, 1931, in
Arequipa, Peru. Byron Richards, flying a
Ford Tri-Motor, was approached on the ground by armed revolutionaries. He refused to fly them anywhere during a 10-day standoff. Richards was informed that the revolution was successful and he could be freed in return for flying one of the men to
Lima. The following year, in September 1932, a
Sikorsky S-38 with registration P-BDAD, registered to
Nyrba do Brasil, was seized in the company's hangar by three men, who took a hostage. Despite having no flying experience, they managed to take off. However, the aircraft crashed in
São João de Meriti, killing the four men. Apparently, the hijack was related to the events of the
Constitutionalist Revolution in São Paulo; it is considered to be the first hijack that took place in Brazil. On October 28, 1939, the first murder on a plane took place in
Brookfield, Missouri, US. The victim was Carl Bivens, a
flight instructor, who was teaching a man named Earnest P. "Larry" Pletch. While airborne in a
Taylor Cub monoplane, Pletch shot Bivens twice in the back of the head. Pletch later told prosecutors, "Carl was telling me I had a natural ability and I should follow that line", adding, "I had a revolver in my pocket and without saying a word to him, I took it out of my overalls and I fired a bullet into the back of his head. He never knew what struck him." The
Chicago Daily Tribune stated it was one of the most spectacular crimes of the 20th century. Pletch pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. However, he was released on March 1, 1957, after serving 17 years, and lived until June 2001. In 1942 near Malta, two New Zealanders, a South African, and an Englishman achieved the first confirmed in-air hijack when they overpowered their captors aboard an Italian seaplane that was flying them to a
prisoner-of-war camp. As they approached an
Allied base, they were strafed by
Supermarine Spitfires unaware of the aircraft's true operators and forced to land on the water. However, all on board survived to be picked up by a British boat. In the years following
World War II, Philip Baum, an
aviation security expert, suggested that the development of a rebellious youth "piggybacking on to any cause which challenged the status quo or acted in support of those deemed oppressed" may have been a contributor to attacks against the aviation field. After this incident and others in the 1950s, airlines recommended that flight crews comply with the hijackers' demands rather than risk a violent confrontation. On 23 July 1956, in the
Hungarian People's Republic, seven passengers hijacked a domestic flight of
Malév Hungarian Airlines, a
Lisunov Li-2 (registration HA-LIG), to escape from behind the
Iron Curtain, and flew it to
West Germany. The aircraft landed safely at Ingolstadt Air Base without injuries. An aircraft belonging to the airline
Lloyd Aereo Boliviano was hijacked in
Bolivia on September 26, 1956. The
DC-4 was carrying 47 prisoners who were being transported from
Santa Cruz, Bolivia, to El Alto, in
La Paz. A political group was waiting to take them to a concentration camp located in Carahuara de Carangas,
Oruro. The 47 prisoners overpowered the crew and gained control of the aircraft while airborne and diverted the plane to
Tartagal, Argentina. Prisoners took control of the aircraft and received instructions to again fly to
Salta, Argentina, as the airfield in Tartagal was not big enough. Upon landing, they told the government of the
injustice they were subjected to, and received
political asylum. On October 22, 1956,
French forces hijacked a Moroccan airplane carrying leaders of the Algerian
National Liberation Front (FLN) during the ongoing
Algerian War. The plane, which was carrying
Ahmed Ben Bella,
Hocine Aït Ahmed, and
Mohamed Boudiaf, was destined to leave from
Palma de Mallorca for
Tunis where the FLN leaders were to conference with Prime Minister
Habib Bourguiba, but French forces redirected the flight to occupied
Algiers, where the FLN leaders were arrested. Australia was relatively untouched by the threat of hijackings until July 19, 1960. On that evening, a 22-year-old Russian man attempted to divert
Trans Australia Airlines Flight 408 to
Darwin or
Singapore. In a five-year period (1968–1972) the world experienced 326 hijack attempts, or one every 5.6 days. The incidents were frequent and often just an inconvenience, which resulted in
television shows creating parodies.
Time magazine even ran a lighthearted comedy piece called "What to Do When the Hijacker Comes". Most incidents occurred in the United States. There were two distinct types: hijackings for transportation elsewhere and hijackings for
extortion with the threat of harm. The
Eastern Air Lines Shuttle Flight 1320 on May 17, 1970, witnessed the first fatality in the course of a U.S. hijacking. Incidents also became problematic outside of the U.S. For instance, in 1968,
El Al Flight 426 was seized by
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) militants on 23 July, an incident which lasted 40 days, making it one of the longest. This record was later
beaten in 1999. As a result of the evolving threat,
President Nixon issued a directive in 1970 to promote security at airports, electronic surveillance and multilateral agreements for tackling the problem. Incidents also became notoriousin 1971, a man known as
D. B. Cooper hijacked a plane and extorted US$200,000 in ransom before parachuting over Oregon. He was never identified. On August 20, 1971, a
Pakistan Air Force T-33 military plane was hijacked prior the
Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 in
Karachi.
Lieutenant Matiur Rahman attacked
Officer Rashid Minhas and attempted to land in India. Minhas deliberately crashed the plane into the ground near
Thatta to prevent the diversion. Countries around the world continued their efforts to tackle crimes committed on-board planes. The
Tokyo Convention, drafted in 1958, established an agreement between signatories that the "state in which the aircraft is registered is competent to exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed on board that aircraft while it is in flight". The Convention came into force in December 1969. A year later, in December 1970, the
Hague Convention was drafted which punishes hijackers, enabling each state to prosecute a hijacker if that state does not extradite them, and to deprive them from asylum from prosecution. Airports slowly implemented walk-through
metal detectors, hand-searches and
X-ray machines, to prohibit weapons and explosive devices. Between 1968 and 1977, there were approximately 41 hijackings per year.
1980–2000 By 1980, airport screening and greater cooperation from the international community led to fewer successful hijackings; the number of events had significantly dropped below the 1968 level. Between 1978 and 1988, there were roughly 26 incidents of hijackings a year. During the 1990s, there was relative peace in the United States airspace as the threat of domestic hijacking was seen as a distant memory. Globally, however, hijackings still persisted. Between 1993 and 2003, the highest number of hijackings occurred in 1993 (see table below). This number can be attributed to events in
China where hijackers were trying to gain political asylum in Taiwan. On 12 April 1999, six
ELN members hijacked a
Fokker 50 of
Avianca Flight 9463, flying from
Bucaramanga to
Bogotá. Many hostages were held for more than a year, and the last hostage was finally freed 19 months after the hijacking.
2001–present On September 11, 2001, four airliners were hijacked by 19
al-Qaeda extremists:
American Airlines Flight 11,
United Airlines Flight 175,
American Airlines Flight 77, and
United Airlines Flight 93. The first two planes were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers of the
World Trade Center in New York City and the third was crashed into
The Pentagon in
Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth crashed in a field in
Stonycreek Township near
Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after crew and passengers attempted to overpower the hijackers. Authorities believe that the intended target was the
U.S. Capitol or the
White House in
Washington, D.C. In total,
2,996 people (2,977 if excluding the perpetrators) perished and more than 6,000 were injured in the attacks, making the hijackings the deadliest in modern history. Following the attacks, the U.S. government formed the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to handle airport screening at U.S. airports. Government agencies around the world tightened their airport security, procedures and intelligence gathering. Until the September 11 attacks, there had never been an incident whereby a passenger aircraft was used as a weapon of mass destruction. The
9/11 Commission report stated that it was always assumed that a "hijacking would take the traditional form"; therefore, airline crews never had a contingency plan for a suicide-hijacking. As Patrick Smith, an airline pilot, summarizes: Throughout the mid-2000s, hijackings still occurred but there were much fewer incidents and casualties. The number of incidents had been declining, even before the September 11 attacks. One notable incident in 2006 was the hijacking of
Turkish Airlines Flight 1476, flying from
Tirana to
Istanbul, which was seized by a man named Hakan Ekinci. The aircraft, with 107 passengers and 6 crew, made distress calls to
air traffic control and the plane was escorted by military aircraft before landing safely at
Brindisi, Italy. In 2007, several incidents occurred in the Middle East and
Northern Africa; hijackers in one of these incidents claimed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda. Towards the end of the decade,
AeroMexico experienced its first terror incident when
Flight 576 was hijacked by a man demanding to speak with
President Calderón. In 2007,
a man failed to hijack a 737-200 with 103 people on board over Chad. Between 2010 and 2019, the
Aviation Safety Network estimates there have been 15 hijackings worldwide with three fatalities. This is a considerably lower figure than in previous decades which can be attributed to greater security enhancements and awareness of September 11–style attacks. On June 29, 2012, an attempt was made to hijack
Tianjin Airlines Flight GS7554 from
Hotan to
Ürümqi in China. More recently was the 2016 hijacking of
EgyptAir Flight MS181, involving an Egyptian man who claimed to have a bomb and ordered the plane to land in
Cyprus. He surrendered several hours later, after freeing the passengers and crew. ==Countermeasures==