Aircraft hijacking
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Alternatively one of the hijackers flies the plane himself. The latter was the case in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center; hijackers took flying lessons as preparation, or were selected by Al-Qaeda based partly on flying skills.
In one case the official pilot hijacked the plane: in October, 1998, on an Air China flight from Beijing to Kunming in Yunnan, he flew to Taiwan after threatening to crash the plane killing the passengers if the other members of the crew prevented him from flying to Taiwan.[1][2]
Unlike the hijacking of land vehicles or ships, skyjacking is usually not perpetrated in order to rob the cargo. Rather, most aircraft hijackings are committed to use the passengers as hostages in an effort to obtain transportation to a given location, to hold them for ransom, or, as in the case of the American planes that were hijacked to Cuba during the 1960s and 70s, the release of comrades being held in prison. Another common motive is publicity for some cause or grievance. Since the use of hijacked planes as suicide missiles in September 11, 2001 attacks, hijacking is a different kind of security threat — though similar usages had apparently been attempted by Samuel Byck in 1974 and on Air France Flight 8969 in 1994.
Hijackings for hostages have usually followed a pattern of negotiations between the hijackers and the authorities, followed by some form of settlement -- not always the meeting of the hijackers' original demands -- or the storming of the aircraft by armed police or special forces to rescue the hostages. Prior to September, 2001, the policy of most airlines was for the pilot to comply with hijackers' demands in the hope of a peaceful outcome. Since then, policies have reversed course, in favor of arming and armoring the cockpit.
Options for preventing hijacking include screening to keep weapons off the airplane, putting air marshals on the flight, and fortifying the cockpit to keep hijackers out.
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[edit] Background
The first recorded aircraft hijack was on February 21, 1931, in Arequipa, Peru. Byron Rickards flying a Ford Tri-Motor was approached on the ground by armed revolutionaries. He refused to fly them anywhere and after a ten day stand-off Rickards was informed that the revolution was successful and he could go in return for giving one of their number a lift to Lima. [3] Most hijackings have not been so farcical.
The first state hijacking of an airplane may have been Israel's hijacking of a Syrian government aircraft[4] although this characterization and the details surrounding the incident are still disputed.
[edit] Prevention
Cockpit doors on most commercial airlines have been strengthened, and are now bullet proof. In the United Kingdom, United States, Australia and India, air marshals have also been added to some flights to deter and thwart hijackers. In addition, some have proposed remote control systems for aircraft whereby no one on board would have control over the plane's flight[5].
In the case of a serious risk that an aircraft will be used for flying into a target, it may have to be shot down, killing all passengers and crew, to prevent more serious consequences.
One task of airport security is to prevent hijacks by screening passengers and keeping anything that could be used as a weapon (even smaller objects like nail clippers for example) off aircraft.
[edit] Situation after September 11
Before the September 11, 2001 attacks, plane crews advised passengers to sit quietly in order to increase their chances to survive. An unofficial protocol emerged, in which civilians and government authorities understood that in most cases violence from the hijackers was unlikely as long as they achieved their goal (often, as during the rash of American incidents in the 1970s, a trip to Cuba).
Since the September 11th attacks, the situation for passengers and hijackers has changed. As in the situation of United Airlines Flight 93, where an airliner crashed into a field during a fight between passengers and hijackers, passengers now have to calculate the risks of passive cooperation, not only for themselves but for those on the ground. Future hijackers may encounter greater resistance from passengers, making a hijacking more unlikely but, if they happen, bloodier.
Several states have stated that they would shoot down hijacked commercial aircraft if it can be assumed that the hijackers intend to use the aircraft in 9/11-style as a weapon, despite killing innocent passengers onboard. According to reports, US fighter pilots have been training shooting down commercial airliners.[1] Other countries such as Poland have enacted laws or decrees that allow shooting down hijacked planes.[2]
[edit] Germany: Shooting down aircraft and the constitution
In a widely regarded decision by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, in February 2006, it struck down a law - "Luftsicherheitsgesetz" or "Air security law" - claiming such preventive measures were unconstitutional and would essentially be state-sponsored murder, even if such an act would save many more lives on the ground. The main reasoning behind this decision was that the state would be effectively taking the lives of innocent hostages in order to avoid a terrorist attack. Another reason was that the Minister of Defense is constitutionally not entitled to act in terrorism matters, as this is the duty of the state and federal police forces. See the German Wikipedia entry, or [3]
The President of Germany, Horst Köhler, himself urged judicial review of the constitutionality of the Luftsicherheitsgesetz after he signed it into law in 2005.
[edit] International law issues
[edit] Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft (Tokyo Convention)
See the United Nations website for full text. [4]
[edit] Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft (Hague Convention)
Signed in the Hague, on the 16 December 1970. Contains 14 articles relating to what constitutes hijacking and guidelines for what is expected of governments when dealing with hijackings. The convention does not apply to customs, law enforcement or military aircraft. Thus its scope appears to exclusively encompass civilian aircraft. Importantly, the convention only comes into force if the aircraft takes off or lands in a place different to its place of registration. For aircraft with joint registration, one country is designated as the registration state for the purpose of the convention.
See the United Nations website for full text. [5]
[edit] Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation (Montreal Convention)
See the United Nations website for full text. [6]
[edit] See also
- Airport security
- List of Cuba-US aircraft hijackings
- D. B. Cooper
- CATSA
- Uli Derickson - Legacy of Courage
[edit] References
- ^ "Air China pilot hijacks his own jet to Taiwan", CNN, 1998-10-28. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ B. Raman (2000-01-02). PLANE HIJACKING: IN PERSPECTIVE. South Asia Analysis Group. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ An amusing footnote to this hijacking is that 30 years later the same pilot was again the victim of a failed hijacking attempt. A father and son boarded his Continental Airlines Boeing 707 in El Paso and tried to force him at gunpoint to fly the plane to Cuba in hopes of a cash reward from Fidel Castro. FBI agents and police chased the plane down the runway and shot out its tires, and the hijacking was averted. See http://www.airdisaster.com/features/hijack/hijack.shtml
- ^ International Terrorism: Image and Reality, by Noam Chomsky
- ^ EC FP6 SAFEE: Safe Automatic Flight Back and Landing of Aircraft
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