AFrench Air ForceNord 262A-34 flying in a blizzard crashes into a 1,342-meter (4,403-foot) high mountain 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) south of Mézilhac, France, and comes to rest 200 meters (660 feet) below its summit, killing all 21 people on board. Seven of France's top nuclear experts are among the dead.[6]
Claiming to have a bomb, Black Panther Party member Garland Grant hijacks Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 433, a Boeing 727 on a U.S. domestic flight from MilwaukeetoDetroit with 60 people on board. He demands to be flown to Algeria, where he hopes to escape the "racist" Milwaukee Police and help people grow crops. Informed that the jet lacks the range to fly that far, he decides to fly to Cuba instead, where he is imprisoned. He will return to the U.S. in 1978, saying "Cuba is a nightmare."[9][10]
January 23 – Armed with homemade hand grenades, Kim Sang-tae attempts to hijack a Korean AirlinesFokker F27 Friendship 500 during a domestic flight in South Korea from Kangnung to Seoul with 60 people on board, demanding to be flown to Sinpo, North Korea, where he believes his brother settled after defecting during the Korean War. Several Republic of Korea Air Force jets intercept the airliner and fire warning shots, forcing it to crash-land on a beach near Sokcho, South Korea. After the plane comes to a halt, the copilot attempts to subdue Kim, who detonates a hand grenade, killing himself and the copilot. The airliner is damaged beyond repair, but the other 58 people aboard the plane survive.[11][12]
January 26 – A male passenger hijacks an Aerovías QuisqueyanaLockheed L-1049 Super Constellation making a non-scheduled flight from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, with 74 people on board, demanding to fly to Havana, Cuba. The pilot attempts to divert to Haiti to refuel, but is denied permission to land. He then diverts to Cabo Rojo Airport in the Dominican Republic, where the hijacker is overpowered after the plane lands.[14]
January 31 – In the 1971 January 31 Surgut Aeroflot Antonov An-12 crash, an Antonov An-12 crashes on approach to Surgut International Airport due to icing, killing all seven people on board. It is the second of two very similar crashes that occurred at the airport nine days apart.
February 25 – Western Airlines Flight 328 – a Boeing 737-200 flying from San FranciscotoSeattle, U.S., with 97 people on board – is hijacked by United States Army recruit Chapin S. Paterson, who tells a flight attendant that he has a bomb, enters the cockpit, and orders the flight crew to fly him to Cuba. Informed that the plane lacks the range to fly there, he agrees to fly to Canada instead. Ten minutes after arrival at Vancouver International Airport, the other passengers—unaware that the plane had been hijacked and thinking they were arriving at Seattle—disembark, and Chapin announces that he has no bomb, exits the airliner, and surrenders to Canadian authorities. He asks to remain in Canada as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, but Canadian courts deny him this status, and he is returned to the U.S. to face criminal charges.[20][21][22]
March 2 – The U.S. Marine Corps begins combat testing of the AH-1J Sea Cobra in South Vietnam. It is the first attack helicopter specifically designed for use aboard ships.[23]
March 8 – Seeking to escape parental pressure over school grades and hoping to seek refuge among American draft evaders in Canada, Thomas Kelly Marston uses a .38-caliber revolver to hijack National Airlines Flight 745 – a Boeing 727 flying from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans, Louisiana, with 46 people on board – and demands to be flown to Montreal. The captain talks Marston into surrendering his weapon and offers to fly him back to Mobile, but at Marston's request diverts to Miami, Florida, instead, where Marston is arrested.[24][25][26]
March 11 – Alyemda, internationally known as "Democratic Yemen Airlines" and "Yemen Airlines," is founded as the flag carrierofSouth Yemen.
On approach to Voroshilovgrad AirportinVoroshilovgrad in the Soviet Union's Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Aeroflot Flight 1969, an Antonov An-10 (registration CCCP-11145), suffers the structural failure of its right wing while descending from 1,200 to 600 meters (3,900 to 2,000 ft). It crashes 13 kilometers (8.1 miles) southwest of the airport, killing all 65 people on board. At the time, it is the second-deadliest accident involving an An-10 and the worst aviation accident in the history of Ukraine.[32]
Saying he is angry about the conviction of William Calley for murder in the My Lai Massacre, Diego Ramirez, calling himself Diego Landeatta, hijacks Eastern Airlines Flight 939 – a Douglas DC-8 with 22 people on board flying from New York City to San Juan, Puerto Rico – armed only with a pair of clackers. He orders the crew to fly to Havana, Cuba, explaining that this will be his one day of importance. When Cuban soldiers arrest him in Havana, he seems confused, saying that he wants to fly back to the US. He will be imprisoned in Cuba until 1974.[33][34]
Brandishing a pistol and taking a female flight attendant hostage, John Morgan Mathews hijacks Delta Air Lines Flight 400 at Birmingham, Alabama, before it can take off for a flight to Chicago, demanding to be flown to Cuba. The flight attendant convinces him to release all 17 passengers, and after negotiations with Delta Air Lines, he surrenders.[35]
April 9 – The last major airmobile operation of the Vietnam War, Operation Lam Son 719, ends after North Vietnamese Army forces drive all South Vietnamese forces out of Laos with heavy casualties. Facing the heaviest antiaircraft artillery fire of the war, American helicopter crews have suffered casualties of 176 killed, 1,942 wounded, and 42 missing, with 107 helicopters destroyed and 600 damaged. The operation has demonstrated a need for the U.S. Army to develop a specialized antitankattack helicopter.[30]
April 25 – An Ecuadorian male passenger attempts to hijack an AviancaBoeing 727-59 (registration HK-1337) during a domestic flight in Colombia from BarranquillatoMedellín with 52 people on board. Passengers and crew members overpower him, and the airliner lands safely in Medellín.[38]
AColombian man claiming he has been diagnosed with cancer and cannot be treated in Colombia draws a .38-caliber revolver and hijacks Avianca Flight 706, a Douglas DC-4-1009 (registration HK-173) with 25 people aboard, shortly after takeoff from Montería, Colombia, for a domestic flight to Cartagena. He demands to be flown to Maracaibo, Venezuela. The airliner refuels at Cartagena before proceeding to Maracaibo.[41]
May 17 – Holding a knife to the throat of his girlfriend, an American man hijacks an SASDouglas DC-9 preparing to depart Malmö, Sweden, for a domestic flight to Stockholm. He demands to be flown to the United States to see his mother, but surrenders after 45 minutes.[43]
May 20 – Boeing announces that it has canceled its Supersonic Transport (SST) project.[29]
May 24 – Flight testing of the Grumman F-14 Tomcat resumes after the December 30, 1970, crash of the first prototype.[45]
May 26 – In the 1971 Qantas bomb hoax, a man extorts A$500,000 in ransom from Qantas by claiming to have hidden a bomb aboard Flight 755, a Boeing 707 en route from Sydney to Hong Kong with 116 passengers, that will explode if the aircraft descends. After the flight circles for hours, the ransom is paid, and the man reveals that no bomb exists. The extortionist and an accomplice are later imprisoned, but much of the ransom is never accounted for, and speculation about additional accomplices continues.[46]
James Bennett hijacks Eastern Airlines Flight 30, a Boeing 727 carrying 138 people en route from Miami, Florida, to New York City, claiming to have a bomb and a vial of acid. After landing at La Guardia Airport in New York City, he releases the passengers and five flight attendants, and insists that airline officials bring his ex-wife and a police supervisor to meet him. When his ex-wife refuses to come, he demands to be flown to Ireland. Informed that the plane cannot fly that far, he agrees to fly to Nassau in the Bahamas, and demands $500,000 and a meeting with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). When he disembarks at Nassau, an Eastern Airlines pilot posing as an IRA commander overpowers him. He turns out to have no explosives.[49][50][51]
May 29 – A hijacker commandeers Pan American World Airways Flight 442, a Boeing 707 with 69 people on board, during a flight from Caracas, Venezuela, to Miami, Florida, and forces it to fly to Cuba.[52]
June 4 – Armed with a .32-caliber pistol and a box containing 50 bullets and wanting to leave the United States before it is incinerated by a "super-bomb," drunken 58-year-old retired coal miner Glen Elmo Riggs hijacksUnited Airlines Flight 796, a Boeing 737-200 with 72 people on board flying from Charleston, West Virginia, to Newark, New Jersey, and demands to be flown to Israel, where he says he hopes to help build a temple. The airliner diverts to Washington Dulles International AirportinVirginia, where Riggs releases the passengers and waits for a Douglas DC-8 to arrive to take him to Israel. After three hours on the ground, the copilot grabs Riggs′ gun when he leaves it behind in the cockpit while he gets a glass of water. Police then storm the plane and arrest Riggs, who later claims not to remember the events aboard Flight 796.[53][54]
June 11 – At O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Gregory White boards Trans World Airlines Flight 358, a Boeing 727 with 26 people on board preparing to depart for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, without a ticket. He threatens a flight attendant with a gun, demands to be flown to North Vietnam, and shoots passenger Howard Franks when Franks moves toward him; Franks is the first American airline passenger to be killed as a result of a hijacking. The other passengers panic and stampede off the aircraft. While White awaits departure, a Deputy United States Marshal enters through a cockpit window with two guns, giving one to a crew member. When White releases the flight attendant after takeoff, the deputy marshal and the crew member emerge from the cockpit and open fire, wounding White, who fires back and hides behind a row of seats. The airliner lands safely at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where White is wounded again in another exchange of gunfire with a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and surrenders. Criticized for allowing White to get so far without a ticket, a Trans World Airlines spokesman rejects any changes to the airline's security policies.[55][56][57]
June 17 – After Piedmont Airlines Flight 25, a Boeing 737-200, arrives at Smith Reynolds Airport after a flight from New York City, Bobby Richard White enters the cockpit and orders the pilot to fly him to Cuba, claiming to have nitroglycerine and sulfuric acid in a bag that will explode if he dropped it. Receiving word that the bag did not explode when White casually tossed it onto a car seat before boarding the flight, officials concoct a plan to overpower him. A Piedmont Airlines official dressed as a pilot boards the plane, while a federal air marshal dressed as a pilot walks nearby and distracts White, allowing the Piedmont official to pin White against a wall. White's bag contains no explosives.[58][59]
June 20 – A male passenger with a knife hijacks an AviancaDouglas DC-4 (registration HK-115) shortly after takeoff from Montería, Colombia, demanding to flown to Mexico. The pilot lands the airliner at Medellin, Colombia, and tells the hijacker that they have arrived in Mexico. The crew then overpowers the hijacker.[61]
Four hijackers take control of a Cruzeiro do SulSud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle VIN (registration PP-PDX) with 31 people aboard for a domestic flight in Brazil from Rio de JaneirotoSão Paulo, demanding the release of prisoners and to be flown to Cuba. Security forces storm the airliner at Rio de Janeiro and arrest the hijackers.[64]
July 22 - At 3.30 am, BOAC Flight 045 from London to Khartoum is ordered by air control in Malta (and allegedly forced to obey the order by Libyan military jets) to land at Benghazi (Libya) where two leaders of the unsuccessful 1971 Sudanese coup d'état, travelling as passengers, are forced to leave the plane.[68]
July 23 – Armed with a stolen pistol, Richard Obergfell takes a flight attendant hostage and hijacks Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 335, a Boeing 727 carrying 61 people bound for Chicago, and demands to be flown to Italy to meet a woman. Informed that the 727 lacks the range to reach Italy, he agrees to change planes, and the 727 returns to La Guardia Airport. Obergfell releases all the passengers and crew except for the flight attendant, who he holds at gunpoint while he rides in a van to John F. Kennedy International Airport, where TWA is readying a Boeing 707 for the flight. As Obergfell marches the hostage across the tarmac at John F. Kennedy Airport, a Federal Bureau of Investigationsniper shoots him, and he dies 30 minutes later.[69][70]
July 24 – Armed with a small pistol and a stick of dynamite, Santiago Guerra-Valdez hijacks National Airlines Flight 183–a Douglas DC-8 flying from Miami to Jacksonville, Florida, with 83 people on board–and rushes toward the cockpit. When an unsuspecting passenger opens a lavatory door, a spooked Guerra-Valdez opens fire, wounding a flight attendant and a passenger. He then forces the pilot to fly the airliner to Cuba, where he disembarks, and the airliner returns to the U.S.[71][72]
July 25 – Four armed members of the Comando Unido Revolucionario Dominicana ("United Dominican Revolutionary Command") hijack an Aeronaves de MéxicoDouglas DC-9-15 with 31 people on board after it takes off from Acapulco, Mexico, for a domestic flight to Mexico City, demanding to be flown to Cuba. The airliner stops at Mexico City to refuel before flying to Havana.[73]
July 28 – A hijacker commanders an Aerolineas ArgentinasBoeing 737-287 (registration LV-JMX) with 49 people on board during a domestic flight in Argentina from SaltatoBuenos Aires, demanding to be flown to Cuba. The airliner diverts to Córdoba, Argentina, where the hijacker surrenders.[74]
Pan American World Airways Flight 845, a Boeing 747-121 with 218 people on board, strikes several approach lighting system structures while taking off from San Francisco International Airport, seriously injuring two passengers and sustaining significant damage. The plane dumps fuel over the Pacific Ocean, returns to the airport 1 hour 42 minutes after takeoff, and makes an emergency landing; the crew then orders an emergency evacuation, during which 27 passengers are injured, eight of them sustaining serious back injuries. There are no fatalities.
September 3 – Grabbing a stewardess aboard Eastern Airlines Flight 993 – a Douglas DC-9 flying from Chicago, Illinois, to Miami, Florida, with 86 people on board – about 20 minutes before landing in Miami, 20-year-old Juan Miguel Borges Guerra holds an ice pick to her throat and demands to be taken to Havana, Cuba. Two Eastern Airlines employees riding aboard the plane as passengers overpower him.[78][79]
September 16 – A hijacker a board an Alia Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle flying from Beirut, Lebanon, to Amman, Jordan, demands to be flown to Iraq. The hijacker is subdued.[81]
October 9 – When a visibly nervous 31-year-old Richard Frederick Dixon is stopped for questioning while boarding Eastern Airlines Flight 953 – a Boeing 727 flying from Detroit, Michigan, to Miami, Florida, with 46 people on board – he pulls out a pistol, takes a stewardess hostage, and demands that the plane fly him to Cuba, saying that he admires radical activist Angela Davis and has a distaste for life in the United States. While Dixon holds his gun on the stewardess for three hours, the airliner's captain, who also had been hijacked to Cuba in 1961, flies the airliner to Cuba, where Cuban soldiers take Dixon into custody.[85][86]
October 10 – United Arab Airlines changes its name to EgyptAir.
October 12 – Two passengers hijack an AvensaConvair CV-580 (registration YV-C-AVA) during a domestic flight in Venezuela from BarcelonatoCaracas and demand that it fly them to Cuba. The airliner stops to refuel at Curaçao, where the hijackers release three mothers and their young children, then proceeds to Havana, Cuba.[87]
October 14 – The Hague Hijacking Convention, formally the "Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft," enters into force. It requires signatory countries to prohibit and punish the hijacking of civilian aircraft in situations in which an aircraft takes off or lands in a place different from its country of registration. It also establishes the principle of aut dedere aut judicare, which holds that a party to the convention must prosecute an aircraft hijacker if no other state requests his or her extradition for prosecution of the same crime.
October 16 – A hijacker seizes control of an Olympic AirwaysNAMC YS-11 with 64 people on board during a domestic flight in Greece from KalamatatoAthens and demand that it fly to Lebanon. After the airliner lands at Athens, security forces storm it and arrest the hijacker.[88]
October 18 – Recently paroled after serving five years in prison for manslaughter and armed with a small-caliber pistol, Del Lavon Thomas hijacks Wien Consolidated Airlines Flight 15 – a Boeing 737-200 with 35 people on board making a flight in Alaska from AnchoragetoBethel – and demands that it stop at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to refuel, then take him to Mexico City, Mexico. After it takes off from Vancouver to fly to Mexico City, Thomas changes his mind and orders it to return to Vancouver, where he enters into negotiations with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, hoping to find a way to avoid going to jail for his actions. After realizing that avoiding prison is impossible, he surrenders quietly to the police.[89][90]
October 26 – A 20-year-old hijacker armed with a gun seizes control of an Olympic Airways Douglas DC-6B with 64 people on board during a domestic flight in Greece from Athens to Crete and demands that it fly to Rome, Italy. Passengers overpower the hijacker.[93]
November 13 – Armed with a sawed-off shotgun, Paul Joseph CinihijacksAir Canada Flight 812, a Douglas DC-8, during a domestic flight in Canada from Calgary, Alberta, to Toronto, Ontario, identifying himself as a member of the Irish Republican Army and threatening to blow up the plane with dynamite if he does not receive $1.5 million and a flight to Ireland. The airliner diverts to Great Falls, Montana, where Air Canada gives him $50,000, which was all the money it could scrape together on short notice. Cini accepts the reduced amount, and the DC-8 takes off to return to Calgary to refuel. During the flight to Calgary, Cini orders the flight crew to open an emergency exit so that he can parachute from the plane, but he unable to untie twine he has used to tie up a parachute he has brought aboard. When one of the pilots hands Cini a fire ax to use to cut the twine, Cini puts his shotgun down. The pilot kicks the shotgun away and grabs Cini, and another crew member fractures Cini's skull with the ax, bringing the hijacking to an end. Cini is arrested and jailed.[94][95]
November 24 – A man identifying himself as "Dan Cooper" uses a bomb threat to hijack Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 – a Boeing 727-51 with 35 other passengers and a crew of six on board flying from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington – demanding US$200,000 and four parachutes. Receiving the money and parachutes at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he allows all passengers and two flight attendants to leave the plane, then orders it flown toward Mexico City; soon after takeoff, he parachutes from the plane with his money, and the airliner lands safely at Reno, Nevada, dragging its aft stairway down the runway. The hijacker is never seen or heard from again and also is never positively identified. The press mistakenly identifies "Dan Cooper" as "D. B. Cooper", the name of another individual questioned in the case, and he goes down in history incorrectly as "D. B. Cooper".[97]
December 3 – The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 begins with a Pakistani Air Force attempt at a preemptive strike against Indian Air Force bases, employing no more than 50 aircraft. The strike initially attacks the wrong bases, then mostly misses Indian aircraft when attacking the right bases, and Indian bases are out of action for only a few hours.[100] The Pakistani Air Force then falls into a defensive role for the remainder of the war.
December 10 – PresidentRichard M. Nixon warns North Vietnam that American bombing of North Vietnam would resume if North Vietnamese military action against South Vietnam increases as American forces are withdrawn from Vietnam.[102]
December 12 – Four young Nicaraguan men demanding to be taken to Cuba – where they hope to attend college without having to pay tuition – hijack a LANICABAC One-Eleven (registration AN-BBI) during a flight from San Salvador, El Salvador, to Managua, Nicaragua. When the son of Nicaragua's Minister of Agriculture, a passenger on the plane, tries to resist them, they shoot him in the leg. The airliner diverts to San José, Costa Rica, where 200 soldiers surround the plane and shoot out its tires. President of Costa RicaJosé "Don Pepe" Figueres Ferrer arrives at the airport armed with a submachine gun and takes part in a subsequent assault on the plane by security forces, which begins with a tear gas attack and culminates in a gun battle in which two of the hijackers are killed and the other two are arrested.[103][104]
December 16 – A hijacker demanding to be flown to Cuba seizes control of a Lloyd Aéreo BolivianoFairchild F27 during a domestic flight in Bolivia from SucretoLa Paz. The airliner diverts to Cochabamba, Bolivia, where security forces storm the plane and arrest the hijacker. One crew member and one passenger are killed during the incident.[105]
December 17 – The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 comes to an end. The Indian Air Force has lost 72 aircraft and the Pakistani Air Force 94 aircraft.[4]
Flying in a thunderstorm and severe turbulence, LANSA Flight 508, a Lockheed L-188A Electra, is struck by lightning and disintegrates in mid-air high over Puerto Inca in eastern Peru'sAmazon rainforest, killing 91 of the 92 people aboard. The only survivor is 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke, who survives a 2-mile (3.2 km) fall into the rainforest strapped in her seat, her fall cushioned by the foliage, and walks for 10 days before finding help; 14 other people also survive their falls from the plane but die in the jungle without being rescued. The lost aircraft was the last one in LANSA's fleet, leading to the airline going out of business 11 days later.
Firing a .38-caliber revolver twice and claiming to have seven sticks of dynamite in a suitcase, 25-year-old Everett Holt takes a stewardess hostage aboard Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 734, a Boeing 707 with 35 people on board flying from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Chicago, Illinois. He demands that a ransom of US$300,000 in cash and two parachutes be delivered to him by armored truck when the airliner lands at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. After the money and parachutes arrive, Holt releases the three stewardesses and all but one of the passengers, planning to force the remaining hostage to use the extra parachute to jump from the plane with him. Before the plane can take off again, however, the flight crew escapes, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation blinds Holt with floodlights and orders him to surrender by megaphone. Smiling broadly, he immediately complies, having held the plane for five hours. His pistol turns out to be loaded only with blanks, and his suitcase has no dynamite in it.[107][108][109][110]
December 26
The United States begins Operation Proud Deep Alpha, which consists of air strikes in three provinces of North Vietnam south of the 20th Parallel. The operation will conclude on December 30.[111]
Acting strangely and making jokes about hijacking the plane during the flight, 24-year-old Donald Coleman pulls out a toy pistol aboard American Airlines Flight 47 – a Boeing 707 with 85 people on board flying from Chicago, Illinois, to San Francisco, California – and demands US$250,000, claiming to be a former United Airlines pilot and to have a bomb that would detonate if the airliner descends below an altitude of 25,000 feet (7,600 meters). He forces the plane to land at Salt Lake City, Utah, where a United States Marine aboard as a passenger tackles and overpowers him as he tries to escape by jumping out of an emergency exit. Cokeman is arrested without further incident.[114][115]
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 314.
^Melia, Tamara Moser, "Damn the Torpedoes": A Short History of U.S. Naval Mine Countermeasures, 1777–1991, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1991, ISBN978-0-945274-07-0, pp. 99–100.
^Melia, Tamara Moser, "Damn the Torpedoes": A Short History of U.S. Naval Mine Countermeasures, 1777–1991, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1991, ISBN978-0-945274-07-0, p. 100.
^Brogan, Patrick, The Fighting Never Stopped: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Conflict Since 1945, New York: Vintage Books, 1990, ISBN978-0-679-72033-1, p. 210.
^ abCitino, Robert M., "India's Blitzkrieg", Military History, May 2012, p. 66.
^Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN978-1-55750-875-1, p. 160.
^Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN978-0-87021-559-9, p. 158.
