Pan Am Flight 841

Pan Am Flight 841 was a commercial passenger flight of a Boeing 747 from San Francisco, California to Saigon, South Vietnam which was hijacked over the South China Sea on July 2, 1972, ostensibly as an act of protest concerning US involvement in the Vietnam War as well as the expulsion of the South Vietnamese hijacker, a recent graduate of a US university, from the United States. The hijacking ended when the captain and passengers overcame and killed the lone hijacker after the plane landed in Saigon.

Flight

The flight was a Pan Am scheduled commercial passenger flight, on a Boeing 747, that departed from San Francisco on July 2, 1972, with stops at Honolulu, Guam and Manila destined for Saigon with 153 passengers and crew.

About 45 minutes after the plane departed Manila on July 3, 1972 (local time) for the final leg of its trip to Saigon, a 24-year-old South Vietnamese native, Nguyen Thai Binh, passed a note to a flight attendant that stated in English, "You are going to fly me to Hanoi and this airplane will be destroyed when we get there." Binh, who claimed to be North Vietnamese, also took another stewardess hostage. The note was conveyed to the flight's 53-year-old captain, Eugene Vaughn.

Binh had graduated from the University of Washington on June 10, 1972 with a bachelor's degree in fisheries management after attending from 1968 to 1971 on a USAID scholarship. An activist opposed to US actions during the Vietnam War, Binh had been arrested for occupying the South Vietnamese consulate in New York; his visa was revoked on June 7 and he was expelled from the US. Binh ostensibly decided to hijack his flight home as an "act of revenge".

When Captain Vaughn refused to reroute the flight from Saigon to Hanoi, Binh wrote a second note spattered with his own blood. The second note read "This indicates how serious I am about being taken to Hanoi." Vaughn confronted Binh in the cabin and observed a foil-wrapped package that Binh said contained a bomb. Binh was also armed with a long knife. Vaughn also spoke with another passenger on the flight whom he knew to be a retired Richmond, California police officer, advising him that he might require his assistance to overcome the hijacker and returning the officer's gun that had been stored in the cockpit for safekeeping during the flight.

Vaughn landed at Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airport under the pretext of needing to refuel the aircraft. After landing, Vaughn walked back to the cabin to speak with the hijacker again. Binh, highly agitated, threatened to detonate his bomb unless the aircraft immediately departed for Hanoi. Claiming to have trouble understanding Binh's speech, Vaughn encouraged Binh to lean closer. When he did so, Vaughn restrained Binh in a choke hold and he and two passengers knocked the package from Binh's hand and pinned him to the floor. Vaughn then signalled the retired police officer, who shot Binh five times, killing him. Vaughn then carried Binh's body to the rear exit of the aircraft and threw it onto the tarmac.

The 136 passengers and 17 crew members evacuated the aircraft. The only reported injury other than the death of the hijacker was that of a US Air Force lieutenant colonel, a passenger on the flight, who broke his leg exiting via the inflated evacuation chute. The plane took off hours later for Hong Kong to have its evacuation gear repaired.

Aftermath

Vaughn reported that he had guessed (correctly) that Binh was bluffing. The foil-wrapped package actually contained lemons. The retired police officer who killed the hijacker was never publicly identified.

Many US anti-war protesters claimed to view Binh as a martyr for their cause, and shortly after the incident a break-in occurred at Vaughn's home in Scottsdale, Arizona in which a note was left, apparently written in animal blood: "Pig Eugene Vaughn guilty of murder. To be punished later. Long live Nguyen Thai Binh. Victory to the Vietnamese. Death to the American aggressor." However, Vaughn's action was also held up as an heroic action to save his passengers, craft and crew, and as an expression of frustration with the many hijackings that occurred during the period. Vaughn was quoted as saying at an event to honor him at the Phoenix airport, "A lot of time and effort has been spent on trying to prevent hijackings, but the only thing that will be effective is a mandatory death penalty, without any loopholes."

Binh's friends in the US established a collection in 1974 at the University of Washington library, containing papers about Binh's life and protest activities.