Hijacking is the seizure of a commercial vehicle by force or the threat of force. For years, trucks have been hijacked and their cargo stolen. Today, hijacking involves chiefly airplanes and is also called skyjacking or air piracy. Since the late 1960’s, skyjackers have seized several hundred planes. In most of these incidents, no one was killed. But several skyjackings resulted in deaths and the destruction of aircraft. A number of governments impose severe penalties for skyjacking.
Plane hijackers may threaten to destroy an aircraft, kill the people aboard, or crash the aircraft into a heavily populated area. Some hijackers make political demands, such as certain policy changes by a nation’s government or the release of imprisoned associates. Others demand a large sum of money in exchange for the safe return of the plane and the people aboard. Still other hijackers want to flee a country in order to escape punishment for a crime.
Gangsters frequently hijacked truckloads of liquor from one another in the 1920’s and early 1930’s, when alcoholic beverages were prohibited in the United States. One of the first skyjackings took place in 1930 in Peru. Skyjackings in the United States began in 1961, and a record total of 40 attempts occurred in 1969. In 1970, the airlines began a voluntary program of skyjack prevention. In 1973, the U.S. government began to require inspection of all passengers and other security action to prevent armed people from boarding planes.
On Sept. 11, 2001, about 3,000 people died as a result of the worst skyjacking incident in U.S. history. Terrorists in hijacked commercial airplanes deliberately crashed into the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and into the Pentagon Building outside Washington, D.C. Later that day, another hijacked plane crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
The domestic law of most nations considers the hijacking of a transnational airliner to be a crime. The Hague Convention of 1970 is a treaty providing international law for the trial and punishment of skyjackers. Most nations, including the United States and Canada, have agreed to support the terms of the treaty.
