![]() ![]() Barkley’s efforts failed, and he ended up confined to a mental institution. Frustrated with his inability to get government officials to take seriously his dispute with the Internal Revenue Service, on June 4, 1970, Barkley hijacked a TWA aircraft, demanding $100 million and a hearing before the U.S. That dubious honor belongs to Arthur Barkley. Cooper.Ĭooper wasn’t the first person to hijack an American airliner and demand money. No one knows for sure what happened to him, though some of the money was recovered in 1980.Īuthorities eventually recovered a portion of the money stolen by D.B. Somewhere between Seattle and a fuel stop in Reno, Nevada, Cooper and the loot disappeared out the back of the aircraft via the 727’s aft stairwell. Cooper then ordered the pilot to fly to Mexico but low and slowly-no higher than 10,000 feet and under 200 knots. Upon arrival in Seattle, Cooper allowed the other passengers to deplane in exchange for the money and the parachutes. In it, he demanded $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes. He then instructed the stewardess to take a note to the cockpit. ![]() Shortly after takeoff, he showed a stewardess the contents of his briefcase, which he said was a bomb. Cooper boarded a Northwest Orient 727 flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle. Cooper inspires copycatsĪmid this dramatic rise in the number of hijackings, on November 24, 1971, a man known to the American public as D.B. officials, two different groups of hijackers, one in 1971 and another in 1972, threatened to crash planes into nuclear power plants. No hostage lives were lost, but the hijackers used explosives to destroy all four aircraft.Īdditionally, and more worrying to U.S. carriers, and forced them to land at Dawson’s Field in Libya. In September 1970, the PFLP hijacked four aircraft, including three belonging to U.S. Many fell into this new category of politically motivated hijackings, including what has become known as the Dawson’s Field hijackings. Though that 39-day ordeal ended without any loss of life, it ushered in a new era of more violent-often politically motivated-hijackings of international airlines.įrom 1968 to 1974, U.S. On July 23 of that year, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked an El Al flight from Rome to Tel Aviv. Above all, airline executives wanted to avoid deterring people from flying, so they resisted the implementation of anxiety-inducing security protocols. Officials wanted to downplay hijackings as much as possible, and the best way to do this was to simply give the hijacker what they wanted to avert the loss of life. The Dawson's Field hijackings resulted in the loss of four aircraft. When they did occur, they usually didn’t involve much violence. Though the new law didn’t stop hijackings altogether, the crime remained relatively rare. officials responded by officially and specifically making hijacking a federal crime. who, for one reason or another, wished to return to their native land and were otherwise blocked due to the U.S. ![]() ![]() Most of these individuals were Cubans living in the U.S. carriers.īeginning in the early 1960s, however, hijackers began targeting U.S. Importantly, none of the airplanes hijacked were flown by U.S. In the context of the Cold War, Western governments granted these hijackers political asylum. That remained a somewhat isolated incident until the late 1940s and 1950s, when several people hijacked airplanes to escape from Eastern Europe to the West. Richards refused, and a ten-day standoff ensued before he was eventually released. Armed revolutionaries approached the grounded plane of pilot Byron Richards and demanded that he fly them over Lima so they could drop propaganda leaflets. The first airplane hijacking happened in 1931 in Peru. ![]()
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