Skyjacking

Definition: Hijacking of aircraft in flight by armed persons or groups, usually for the purpose of perpetrating other crimes

Significance: A form of air piracy, skyjacking has been a major international concern since the late 1960’s; however, the use of skyjacked aircraft as flying bombs on September 11, 2001, added a new and frightening security threat for the United States and all other countries.

Before the September 11, 2001, terrorists attacks on the United States, most skyjackings were undertaken for the purpose of using passengers as hostages to secure the release of political prisoners or to gain passage to certain locations, such as Cuba. More than one-half of all skyjackings between 1947 and 2004 were committed by political refugees; these included twenty-seven skyjackings of airplanes redirected to Cuba in 1968 alone. In 1969, there were eighty-two skyjacking attempts throughout the world. Several of these were undertaken by Palestinian nationalists who attempted to use them as political propaganda for their causes or as efforts to force Israel to release Palestinian prisoners from jail. A small number of skyjackings have been undertaken for monetary gain. The most famous of these occurred in 1971, when a skyjacker known only as “Dan Cooper” escaped with a large ransom. He has never been fully identified or arrested since then.

History and Prevalence

The first documented skyjacking occurred in Peru in 1931, when a pilot flying a tiny Ford Tri-Motor was confronted by a group of armed political insurgents. His refusal to fly them to their destination led to a ten-day standoff that was eventually resolved through negotiation. The first skyjacking of a commercial airliner is believed to have occurred in 1948, when a Cathay Pacific seaplane crashed in the sea after a failed takeover by an armed passenger.

The next ten years saw few recorded skyjackings of commercial airliners. After the communist takeover in Cuba in 1959 with the Cuban Revolution, however, skyjackings of commercial airliners by persons who wanted to fly from Cuba to the United States or from the United States to Cuba began. Most skyjackers were refugees fleeing from Cuba and the rule of Fidel Castro. Between 1967 and 1972, more than 150 skyjackings occurred around the world. Most were undertaken for political reasons, and many of the skyjackers demanded to be flown to the Middle East or Cuba.

In late November, 1971, a different form of skyjacking occurred, when a man who would become known to the world as “D. B. Cooper” boarded a Northwest Orient Airline Boeing 727 in Portland, Oregon. Cooper pulled off the only major successful skyjacking for money in U.S. history and became an antigovernment cult hero in the process. His story began when he purchased an airline ticket to Seattle. Shortly after the plane took off, he gave a flight attendant a note demanding four parachutes and $200,000 in unmarked cash. After the flight attendant passed the note to the plane’s pilot, she reported seeing objects in Cooper’s briefcase that might be parts of a bomb, so the pilot took Cooper’s threat seriously and reported Cooper’s demands to the airline, which in turn notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which had investigative jurisdiction over skyjackings.

At that time, airline flight crews were trained to accede to skyjackers’ demands and hope for peaceful resolutions to situations. As Cooper’s flight circled the Seattle airport, the FBI assembled 10,000 twenty-dollar bills—which weighed more than twenty pounds—and the four parachutes that Cooper demanded. The plane then landed in Seattle, where all the other passengers and all but one of the flight attendants left the aircraft. After the plane took off, Cooper demanded to be flown to Mexico. He also ordered the pilots to fly the plane at an altitude of 10,000 feet and an airspeed of not more than 200 miles per hour. Meanwhile, he had the stairs on the aft entry of the Boeing 727 lowered. About fifteen minutes after takeoff, the pilot noticed a warning light that indicated the plane’s rear door was open. Cooper was gone, along with two parachutes and the money.

The two U.S. Air Force jets following the airliner did not see Cooper exit the aircraft. Since Cooper evidently parachuted from the plane at an altitude of about 10,000 feet, in the midst of high winds and freezing rain, there was good reason to believe that he may not have survived the jump. Cooper was never found, but FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach, who was in charge of the investigation, concluded that Cooper was killed while parachuting. Nine years later, a young boy found almost $6,000 of Cooper’s ransom money near the Columbia River. No other trace of Cooper or his ransom has ever been found, and in 2005, the case remained the only unsolved domestic skyjacking in U.S. history. Meanwhile, D. B. Cooper became a popular legend and the subject of films and television programs.

Cooper’s crime inspired some copycat skyjackings in the United States. For example, in August, 1972, another Boeing 727, which was flying from Miami, Florida, to New York City, was skyjacked by a U.S. citizen and an Ethiopian national, who managed to board the plane with a shotgun and a revolver. At that time, passengers boarding airliners were not screened. These hijackers attempted to emulate each step of Cooper’s plan, but their scheme was disrupted when their plane was damaged during its landing. They demanded a second airplane but eventually surrendered to FBI agents after a long standoff. Both men were convicted of air piracy and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

During the 1980’s and 1990’s, politically motivated skyjackings became more frequent around the world, especially in the Middle East. However, there were few major skyjacking incidents in the United States until September 11, 2001. On that date, Muslim extremists who had established residence in the United States hijacked four American airliners simultaneously and used them as suicide missiles against targets in New York City and Washington, D.C. This new use of skyjacking introduced a more terrifying aspect to skyjacking that posed a huge security threat to the world’s nations.

Investigation

Skyjacking presents unique challenges to law enforcement, especially since 2001. One of these challenges is posed by the exceptional mobility of aircraft, which makes it possible for skyjackers to perpetrate crimes that range across states, nations, and even oceans. Skyjacking of aircraft is covered under federal law, as are several other crimes involving aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States.

As the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI has long had jurisdiction over investigations of skyjackings under Title 28, Section 533, of the United States Code. Since 2001, the FBI has listed protecting the United States and its citizens from terrorist attacks as its top priority, and that fact in turn makes combating skyjacking a top FBI priority. To meet that priority, the FBI cooperates extensively with law-enforcement agencies of other nations.

In late 2001, the U.S. Congress passed the USA Patriot Act to toughen security against future terrorist attacks. Congress also passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Originally placed under the federal Department of Transportation, that new agency was moved to the new Department of Homeland Security in 2003. TSA was made responsible for airport security, and prevention of skyjackings became an integral part of its mission. TSA employees have replaced civilian security contractors at airports throughout the United States. TSA established new guidelines for carry-on and stowed luggage, began utilizing improved methods of conducting inspections of passengers and their luggage, and established guidelines for interception of suspected terrorists. Meanwhile, state, local, and federal law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have worked diligently to investigate suspected terrorist organizations and individuals to prevent future terrorist skyjackings.

Prosecution and Punishment

Several international conventions have sought to gain agreements and cooperation from various countries regarding the issue of skyjacking. For example, the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas defined air piracy as “any illegal acts of violence, detention or act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft.” In 1963, the Tokyo Convention obliged contracting states to take all appropriate measures to restore control of aircraft hijacked in flight to their lawful commanders and required the states in which hijacked aircraft land to allow their passengers and crew to continue to their intended destinations. Other international treaties pertaining to skyjacking were signed at conventions in The Hague in 1970 and Montreal in 1971.

Despite these international treaties and other attempts at international cooperation in the handling of skyjackings, there has been little real progress among nations. Skyjacking is an international problem, but not all nations are willing to cooperate in combating it. Even the United States has not always cooperated fully with other nations. On several occasions, it has refused to return skyjackers to the countries where they hijacked aircraft. In some cases, the United States has regarded the skyjackers as political refugees from countries with totalitarian regimes, such as Cuba.

The events of September 11, 2001, have changed the way skyjackers are treated in the United States and other nations. For example, in 2003, six Cuban refugees sought freedom from the rule of Fidel Castro by forcing the pilots of an aging Cuban DC-3 passenger plane to take them to Florida. All six refugees were convicted of air piracy in a U.S. district court and sentenced to twenty-year prison terms. Afterward, assistant U.S. attorney Harry C. Wallace, Jr., said the verdict sent “a clear message that while we are sympathetic to people who want to come to the United States, we will not tolerate the use of violence or the threat of violence.”

Bibliography

Choi, J. Aviation Terrorism: Historical Survey, Perspectives and Responses. Indianapolis: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994. Review of the history of aviation terrorism from its beginnings through hijackings of the 1960’s and 1970’s to the sabotage bombings during the 1980’s. Includes detailed case studies of important incidents.

Gero, D. Flights of Terror: Aerial Hijack and Sabotage Since 1930. Osceola, Wis.: Motorbooks International, 1997. History of skyjacking that concentrates on the hostile actions committed against commercial aircraft from the earliest days of air travel through the 1990’s. Provides detailed reference information in a factual and readable format. Each entry lists the date, airline, aircraft serial number, location, details of the action, and whatever reasons are known.

Himmelsbach, R. Norjak: The Investigation of D. B. Cooper. Woodburn, Oreg.: Norjak Project, 1980. The story of D. B. Cooper’s skyjacking as told by the former FBI agent who headed the Cooper investigation.

Moore, K. Airport, Aircraft, and Airline Security. 2d ed. Woburn, Mass.: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1991. Study of airport and airline security that also covers skyjacking and terrorism against air carriers and methods used to combat terrorism.

St. John, P. Air Piracy, Airport Security, and International Terrorism. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1991. Now somewhat dated but highly readable work that provides a fascinating history of international aircraft terrorism and examines the difficulties of combating the problem. Current safety measures and policies of individual countries are analyzed, and a coordinated seven-stage plan is proposed to combat air piracy.

Wallis, R. Combating Air Terrorism. Dulles, Va.: Brassey’s, 1993. Focusing on the principal air terrorist acts since the mid-1980’s, explains how the international community is working to make airways safer, describing the areas that need more attention.