List of aircraft hijackings

The following is a list of notable aircraft hijackings around the world.

List of notable aircraft hijackings

1960s

• 1961: aircraft forced to circle Lisbon to drop leaflets. 6 hijackers were involved.

• 23 July, 1968: To date, the only successful El Al hijacking attempt, as three members of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijack El Al Flight 426 from Rome to Tel Aviv. Diverting to Algiers the negotiations extend over forty days. Both the hijackers and the hostages go free.

1970s

• 1970, March 17: Eastern Air Lines Shuttle Flight 1320, carrying passengers from Newark to Boston was hijacked around 7:30 P.M. by John J. Divivo who was armed with a .38 caliber revolver. Captain Robert Wilbur Jr., 35, a former Air Force pilot who had only been promoted to captain six months prior, was shot in his arm by the suicidal hijacker. With a .38 slug in his arm and bleeding profusely, he flew his aircraft safely to a landing while talking to the tower, telling them his copilot was shot (but not himself) and needed an ambulance. His copilot, First Officer James Hartley, 31, was mortally shot without warning by Divivo and collapsed. Divivo then turned the gun on the captain, wounding him when Hartley arose, ripped the gun from Divivo's hand, and shot him three times before lapsing into unconsciousness. Although wounded and slumped between the seats, Divivo arose and began clawing at Captain Wilbur, attempting to force a crash. Wilbur hit Divivo over the head with the gun he had retrieved from the center console. The pilot was able to land the plane safely at Logan International Airport, and the hijacker was arrested immediately.

• 1970, March 31: Japan Airlines Flight 351, carrying 131 passengers and 7 crew from Tokyo to Fukuoka, is hijacked by nine members of the Japanese Red Army group. 23 passengers were freed at Fukuoka Airport, mainly children or old aged. 108 passengers and all crew members with Red Army group left Fukuoka, bound for Gimpo Airport, near Seoul. Three days after, Red Army group ask to be flown to North Korean capital Pyongyang, before leaving from Seoul, 103 passenger and crew hostages are freed, and nine Red Army group members surrendered to North Korean authorities.

• September 1970: As part of the Dawson's Field hijackings, PFLP members attempted to hijack four aircraft simultaneously. They succeeded on three and forced the planes to fly to the Jordanian desert, where the hijackers blew up the aircraft after releasing most of the hostages. The final hostages were freed in exchange for seven Palestinian prisoners. The fourth attack on an El Al plane by two people including Leila Khalid was foiled by armed guards aboard.

• October 15 1970, Aeroflot Flight 244 was hijacked from Batumi, Adjar ASSR, Georgian SSR, to Trabzon, Turkey by a Lithuanian national and his son. An air hostess was killed and some other crew were injured in a shootout. The hijackers later received American citizenship.

• 1971, January 30: Indian Airlines Fokker F27 on scheduled Srinagar-Jammu flight is hijacked to Lahore by two self-proclaimed Kashmir Separatists. All passengers were released by February 2 and repatriated to India, but the aircraft was blown-up--leading to an India-Pakistan air-travel ban, and suspension of overflight rights until 1976.

• 1971, March: Philippine Airlines flight was hijacked in March 1971 by six students from the Mindanao State University, opposed to the Marcos government. The plane landed in Guangzhou (Canton) in southern China, and the Chinese authorities let the students stay in the country. The plane was then allowed to fly back to the Philippines. No one was hurt. One of the students, Jaime FlorCruz, later became a journalist in Beijing, working for TIME magazine, and CNN.

• 1972, January 12: Braniff Flight 38, a Boeing 727 airliner, was hijacked as it departed Houston, Texas bound for Dallas, Texas. The lone armed hijacker, Billy Gene Hurst, Jr., allowed all 94 passengers to deplane after landing at Dallas Love Field but continued to hold the 7 crewmembers hostage, demanding to fly to South America and asking for US $2 million, parachutes, and jungle survival gear, amongst other items. After a 6-hour standoff, the entire crew secretly fled while Hurst was distracted examining the contents of a package delivered by Dallas police. Police officers stormed the craft shortly afterwards and arrested Hurst without serious incident.

• 1972, January 28: TWA Flight #2, Los Angeles to New York, was hijacked by con man and bank robber Garrett Trapnell while over Chicago. Trapnell demanded $306,800 in cash (to recoup the loss of a recent court case), the release of Angela Davis (as well as that of a friend of his who was also imprisoned), and clemency from President Richard Nixon. The FBI was able to retake the aircraft during a crew switch at Kennedy Airport; Trapnell was shot and wounded, no one else was hurt. Trapnell's hijacking came after a string of domestic incidents and resulted in an overhaul of flight procedures by the Nixon Administration, procedures that remained in place until the September 11, 2001 hijackings.

• 1976: The Palestinian hijack of Air France Flight 139 is brought to an end at Entebbe Airport, Uganda by Operation Entebbe: Israeli commandos assault the building holding the hijackers and hostages killing all Palestinian hijackers and rescuing 105 persons, almost all Israeli hostages; three passengers and one commando are killed.

• 1976: TWA Flight 355 was hijacked by Croatian separatists. Some passengers were allowed to deplane in Canada before the hijackers continued on to Iceland, then France, where they released the remaining passengers and surrendered to authorities. One New York police officer was killed while working on a bomb which the hijackers had planted at Grand Central Station.

• 1977: Lufthansa Flight 181 (also known as the Landshut) was hijacked by Palestinian highjackers on a flight from Palma de Mallorca to Frankfurt. The ordeal ended in Mogadishu, Somalia when GSG 9 commandos stormed the plane. Three hijackers were killed and 86 hostages were freed. The pilot was killed. The hand of West Germany's Red Army Faction was suspected.

• 1978, September 30: Finnair Flight 405 was hijacked by Aarno Lamminparras; the flight was en route from Oulu to Helsinki. He requested a ransom of 675,000 markka, which he received, and as a result he released all 44 passengers on board. Then he ordered the plane to fly him to Amsterdam in the Netherlands and then back to Oulu. He returned home and was arrested there the next day. He served seven years and one month in prison and now lives in Sweden. One of the passengers on board the hijacked plane was singer Monica Aspelund.

1980s

• 1981: A Pakistan International Airlines jet is hijacked and taken to Kabul, where one passenger is killed before the plane flies on to Damascus; the hostages are finally released after 13 days when the Pakistani Government agrees to free fifty political prisoners.

• 1981: The Hijacking of Flight Garuda Indonesia GA 206 on 28 March 1981. This was the first serious Indonesian airline hijacking, since the first case was a desperate Marine hijacker who was killed by the pilot himself. The hijackers, a group called Commando Jihad, hijacked the DC 9 "Woyla", onroute from Palembang to Medan, and ordered the pilot to fly the plane to Colombo, Sri Lanka. But since the plane didn't have enough fuel, it refueled in Penang, Malaysia and then to Don Muang, Thailand. The hijackers demanded the release of Commando Jihad members imprisoned in Indonesia, and US $ 1.5 million, as well as a plane to take those prisoners to an unspecified destination. The Kopassus commandos who took part in this mission trained for only three days with totally unfamiliar weapons, brilliantly executed this fast-paced operation. One of the Kopassus commandos was shot by the hijacker leader, who then shot himself. All the other hijackers were killed. All the hostages were saved.

• 1981: An Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to London was hijacked and diverted to Le Touquet in France by a man demanding that the Pope release the third secret of Fatima. While authorities negotiated with the hijacker by radio in the cockpit, French special forces entered the rear of the aircraft and overpowered him.

• February 1982: An Kuwait Airways flight, KU561 from Kuwait to Libya via Beirut on the return was hijacked on the ground at Beirut airport in Beirut in Lebanon by Hamza akl Hamieh demanding news and release of Imam Musa al Sadr, who had disappeared in Libya in 1978. The Captain Les Bradley flew the damaged plane back to Kuwait after Hamza and his colleagues left the plane, disappearing into the night, leaving a warning for Kuwait Airways to drop the Kuwait Libya Beirut Kuwait route. There were no casualties.

• 1982 (July 1): A Sri Lankan, identified as Sepala Ekanayake, who was 33 years old, hijacked an Alitalia jumbo jet from Bangkok, Thailand, in order to be united with his wife and child and to return to Sri Lanka.

• 1982 (August 22): A lone Sikh militant, armed with a pistol and a hand grenade, hijacked a Indian Airlines on a scheduled flight from Mumbai to New Delhi carrying 69 persons. Indian security forces killed the hijacker and rescued all passengers. Peter Lamont, production designer working on the James Bond film Octopussy, was a passenger.

• 1983: Tbilisi hijacking incident.

• 1984 August 24: Seven young Sikh hijackers demanded an Indian Airlines jetliner flying from Delhi to Srinagar be flown to the United Arab Emirates. The plane was taken to UAE where the defense minister of UAE negotiated the release of the passengers. It was related to the Sikh secessionist struggle in the Indian state of Punjab.

• 1984: December 3: Kuwait Airways Flight 221 Lebanese Shi'a hijackers divert a Kuwait Airways flight to Tehran. Two American USAID officials are shot dead and dumped on the tarmac. The plane is taken by Iranian security forces who were dressed as custodial staff.[1]

• 1985 : Lebanese Shi'a Amal hijackers divert TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Beirut with 153 people on board. The stand-off ends after Israel frees 31 Lebanese prisoners. Among the passengers was famous Greek singer Demis Roussos

• 1985: Three Palestinian members of the Abu Nidal Organization hijacked on November 23, its Athens to Cairo route,EgyptAir Flight 648 and fly it to Malta. All together, 60 people died, most of them when Egyptian commandos stormed the aircraft.

• 1986: 22 people are killed when Pakistani security forces storm Pan Am Flight 73 at Karachi, carrying 400 passengers and crew after a 16-hour siege.

• 1986: December 25: 63 people are killed when Iraqi Airways Flight 163 crashes near Arar, Saudi Arabia due to an explosion in the cockpit. The plane was hijacked by 3 hijackers.

• 1988: March 8: Ovechkin family (a mother and her 10 children) attempted to hijack a Tu 154 flight from Irkutsk to Leningrad while trying to escape from the USSR. The plane landed on a military airfield near Vyborg and was then stormed. A stewardess and three passengers were killed. The mother was killed by one of her sons by her own request, then four of them committed suicide.

• 1988: Two Kuwaitis are killed in 1988 when Lebanese gunmen hijack a Kuwait Airways Flight 422 (aljabriya) from Bangkok, Thailand and force it to fly to Algiers with more than 110 people on board; the hijack ends after 16 days when the hijackers free the remaining hostages and are allowed to leave Algiers.

1990s

• 1990: Hijackers seized a plane from the People's Republic of China which later crashed as it tried to land in Guangzhou (aka Canton), killing 128 people.

• 1991: 26 March , Singapore Airlines Flight 117 hijacked by 4 individuals claiming to be members of the Pakistan Peoples Party. Elite Singapore Special Operations Force members stormed the plane on 27 March, killing all four hijackers and freeing all 118 passengers and 9 crew in an operation lasting just 30 seconds. None of the passengers and crew were hurt.

• 1993: 11 February, Lufthansa Flight 592 scheduled service from Frankfurt to Cairo and Addis Ababa, was hijacked at gunpoint by a lone Ethiopian man. The A310 initially flew to Hannover for fuel before flying to New York's JFK where the hijacker surrendered after brief negotiations. No passengers or crew were injured or killed.

• 1993:Two separate hijackings of Indian Airlines aircraft to Amritsar, Punjab, India in the month of April. In the first case the hijacker was talked into surrendering; in the second, the Commandos stormed in and killed the sole hijacker. The Amritsar Deputy Commissioner Karan Bir Singh Sidhu was conferred the Convoy Safe Skies Award.

• 1993:Russian Aeroflot passenger jet flying from Perm to Moscow diverted to Gardermoen airport by two Iranian brothers. Hijackers surrendered and hostages went free. The hijackers were later given asylum in Norway for humanitarian reasons.

• 1994: FedEx Flight 705 hijacked by disgruntled employee Auburn Calloway as it left Memphis, Tennessee, with the intention of using it as a cruise missile against FedEx HQ. He was subdued by the flight crew before an emergency landing back at Memphis.

• 1994: Air France Flight 8969 was hijacked from Algiers by four GIA terrorists planning to crash into the Eiffel Tower in central Paris. After the murder of 3 passengers, GIGN commandos stormed the plane in Marseilles, killing all hijackers and freeing all passengers. This hijacking marked a landmark: the first known hijacking where the intention was to destroy the aircraft and passengers, and use the fuelled aircraft as a missile to destroy ground targets, rather than to achieve political and publicity goals.

• 1995: Iranian defector and flight attendant Rida Garari hijacked Kish Air flight 707, which landed in Israel. No casualties.

• 1996: Hemus Air Tu-154 aircraft was hijacked by the Palestinian Nadir Abdallah, flying from Beirut to Varna. The hijacker demanded that the aircraft be refuelled and given passage to Oslo, Norway after landing at Varna Airport. All of the 150 passengers were freed at Varna, afterwards the crew continued the flight to Oslo.

• 1996: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 crashed into the Indian Ocean near a beach in the Comoros Islands after hijackers refused to allow the pilot to land and refuel the plane. 125 passengers died and the remaining 50 passengers survived with minor injuries. This is only the third incident in which there were survivors of a passenger jet that had been intentionally ditched into a body of water.

• 1997: Two men who hijacked an Air Malta aircraft en route from Malta to Turkey on June 9 1997 surrendered to police at Cologne airport early on the same day and freed without incident about 80 crew members and passengers on board.

• 1999: All Nippon Airways Flight 61 is hijacked by a lone man. He kills the pilot before he is subdued.

• 1999-2000: Pakistan-based terrorists hijack Indian Airlines Flight 814 and divert it to Kandahar. After a week-long stand-off India agrees to release three jailed Pakistani terrorists in exchange for the hostages. 1 hostage was stabbed to death and his body thrown on the tarmac as a "warning attack".

2000s

• 2000: Ariana Afghan Airlines Boeing 727 is hijacked on an internal flight within Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and ended up at London Stansted Airport, where most of the passengers claimed political asylum.

• 2000: Philippine Airlines Flight 812 was hijacked en route from Davao City, Philippines to Manila. The hijacker parachuted from the aircraft while still airborne; his body was later found.

• 2001: September 11 attacks, eastern USA: 19 terrorists hijacked American Airlines flights 11 and 77, and United Airlines flights 93 and 175 . The four heavily-fuelled aircrafts were used as missiles to attack targets of economic, military, and political significance in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. Two of the planes, UA175 and AA11 were crashed into New York City's twin towers of the World Trade Center, destroying the entire complex and killing 2,998 people. In Washington, D.C. AA77 was crashed into the Pentagon, causing massive destruction to the side of the building facing Arlington Cemetary. Over 100 deaths took place there; an one more attack on the US Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., which was averted when passengers intervened and UA93 crashed into a field, although all those on the aircraft perished.
  This marked a landmark in hijacking: the first successful hijacking where the intention was to destroy the aircraft and passengers, and use the fueled aircraft as a missile to destroy ground targets, rather than to achieve political and publicity goals. It also marked a landmark in responses to the threat of hijacking: until then the recommended response was for the crew to obey the hijackers' demands so as to safeguard the passengers and buy time; after this the policy was more about preventing access to the cockpit and pilots, and aggressive responses. From this time air passengers worldwide were prohibited from having anything remotely like a bladed weapon in the passenger cabin: scissors, tweezers, nailfiles, etc.

• 2006: Turkish Airlines Flight 1476, flying from Tirana to Istanbul, was hijacked in Greek airspace. The aircraft, with 107 passengers and six crew on board, transmitted two coded hijack signals which were picked up by the Greek air force; the flight was intercepted by military aircraft and landed safely at Brindisi, Italy.

• 2007: an Aeroflot Airbus A320 flying from Moscow to Geneva was hijacked by a drunk man in Prague and there released crew and passengers after he was arrested by the Czech Republic.

• 2007: an Air West Boeing 737 was hijacked over Sudan, but landed safely at N'Djamena, Chad.

• 2007: an Air Mauritanie Boeing 737 flying from Nouakchott to Las Palmas with 87 passengers on board was hijacked by a man who wanted to fly to Paris, but the plane landed in an air base near Las Palmas and the hijacker, a Moroccan, was arrested.

• 2007: an Atlasjet MD-80 en route from Nicosia to Istanbul was hijacked by two Arab students, who said they were Al Qaeda operatives, one trained in Afghanistan, and wanted to go to Tehran, Iran. The plane landed in Antalya, the passengers escaped and the hijackers were arrested.

• 2008: a Sun Air Boeing 737 flying from Nyala, Darfur, in Western Sudan to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, was hijacked shortly after takeoff. The hijackers demanded to be taken to France where they reputedly wanted to gain asylum. The plane initially tried to land at Cairo but was refused permission. It subsequently touched down at Kufra, Libya. The hijackers gave themselves up almost 24 hours after taking the plane. There were no reported casualties.

• 2009: a CanJet Boeing 737-800 preparing to depart from the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, Jamaica to Cuba was hijacked by a gunman who forced his way through airport security onto the plane. His main motive was a demand to the crew to fly him to Cuba. Most of the passengers on the plane gave him money to buy their freedom. For the rest of the night, negotiations took place as 6 crew members were held hostage in the flight for several hours. Quick responses from the police force allowed them to disarm the hijacker and arrest him. There were no casualties.

See also

• Aircraft hijacking
• List of Cuba-US aircraft hijackings
• List of hijacking of Indian aeroplanes
• Korean Air incidents and accidents
• List of hijacking of Turkish airplanes