Hijacking

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 and after a 10-day standoff, Richards was informed that the revolution was successful and he could go in return for flying one group member to Lima.

On July 17, 1948, a Cathay Pacific flying boat, Miss Macao, was seized by Chinese bandits. The plane was en route from Macau to Hong Kong when it was hijacked by four armed men. The bandits demanded a ransom of $100,000, but the plane was eventually released without any further incident.

The hijacking of Miss Macao was the first hijacking of a commercial plane in Asia. The four hijackers were never caught, and their identities remain unknown. However, it is believed that they were members of a Chinese gang. 

The longest hijacking of a commercial flight was the El Al Flight 426 hijacking by three Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militants on July 23, 1968, which was en route from Rome to Tel Aviv. The hijackers demanded the release of 23 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the plane was flown to several different countries, including Algeria, France, and Switzerland. Over the course of 40 days, the hijackers released some of the hostages, but they refused to release all of them until their demands were met. On September 1, 1968, the hijackers released the remaining hostages and surrendered to the Swiss authorities.

A Boeing 707 of El Al at Zurich International Airport, Switzerland.

Flight hijacking from the USA to Cuba during the 1960s and 1970s was so common, pilots were equipped with detour flight plans. Building a fake "Havana airport" in south Florida was seriously considered,

When Candid Camera host Allen Funt's airplane was hijacked by Cubans in 1969, the passengers believed they were on a hidden camera tv show. He could not change their minds.

THE only unsolved skyjacking in US history involved Northwest Flight 305 from Oregon to Seattle on 1971. During a severe thunderstorm over Washington State a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (aka D. B. Cooper) persuaded the authorities to swap $200,000 ) for the passengers before the Boeing 727 was allowed to fly on with him and the crew. The hijacker escaped by parachute and it’s not known if he landed safely.

15 hijackings similar to Cooper's — all unsuccessful — were attempted in 1972. There were no further notable Cooper imitators until July 11, 1980, when Glenn K. Tripp seized Northwest flight 608 at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, demanding $600,000 two parachutes, and the assassination of his boss. He had his drink spiked with Valium by a flight attendant, and after a 10 hour standoff, lowered his ransom to three cheeseburgers and a head start on a getaway.

The actress Elizabeth Taylor offered herself as a hostage in 1976 to save more than 100 Air France passengers hijacked by terrorists in Uganda before Israeli forces rescued them.

An unidentified hijacker named Vrillon, claiming to be the representative of the "Ashtar Galactic Command", took over Britain's Southern Television for six minutes on November 26, 1977 –  starting at 5:12 pm. During the broadcast, Vrillon spoke about the dangers of nuclear weapons and environmental destruction, and warned of a coming disaster. He also urged people to live in peace and harmony with each other. The identity of Vrillon has never been determined, and the motives for the broadcast remain a mystery. 

In 1985 a drunk student hijacked a Boeing in Trondheim, Norway demanding to talk to the prime minister. He later surrendered in exchange of more beer.

Passengers were held hostage for 173 hours when Indian Airlines Flight 814 was hijacked by an Islamist group during its journey from Kathmandu to New Delhi, in 1999. They were released after India agreed to release three militants, later implicated in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, which killed 164.

Taliban militia in front of the hijacked plane.

On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda Islamic extremists hijacked four planes. Two hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, while a third smashed into The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in a series of coordinated suicide attacks. In total 2,996 people were killed, making the hijacking the most fatal in history.

In 2007, a Mauritanian flight was hijacked by Mohamed Abderraman,  a 32-year-old Mauritanian. Over the PA, the pilot instructed the passengers that he was about to make a bumpy landing, and they should attack the hijacker while he was off balance. He said this in French, which the gunman did not speak. The ploy succeeded and the hijack was thwarted.

In 2014, a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines plane was headed to Switzerland, but had to be intercepted by French/Italian fighter jets because the Swiss Air force doesn't work on nights and weekends.

While filming the movie Entebbe on December 23, 2016, about a plane being hijacked at Malta International Airport, an actual hijacked plane landed at the airport on the day of the filming. They then filmed the real hostages being released and edited it into the movie. The producer called it a "blessing from the sky on a day of bad acting."