26 Survivors Drowned After Plane Crash
In 1996, after a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed into the ocean, an estimated 60-80 survivors of the initial impact drowned. Despite the captain’s warnings not to inflate their life vests inside the plane, many did, causing them to be pinned against the ceiling as the water rushed in.
27. When hijackers seized a Japan Airlines flight in 1970, the Japanese vice minister for transport volunteered to be a hostage in exchange for over 100 passengers. The hijackers fled to North Korea, where he was released after a few days, while the hijackers remain there to this day.
28. In 1971, six Filipino students, seeking “revolutionary truth,” hijacked a plane to Maoist China to experience life under the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. However, they soon discovered that leaving China was far more difficult than getting there. In the late 1970s, only two of them succeeded in returning to Manila, where they faced immediate arrest.
29. In 1977, hostages on a hijacked Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134 escaped when their captors fell asleep. Without any leverage, the hijackers quickly surrendered.
30. In 1972, Catherine Kerkow and an accomplice hijacked a Western Airlines flight, allowing 97 passengers to disembark in San Francisco before flying to Algeria. Remarkably, it was one of two hijacked planes that landed at San Francisco International Airport that day. Kerkow was last seen in France in 1975 and remains at large to this day.
31 Flight 93’s Delay Saved Lives
Flight 93 experienced a 42-minute delay on September 11. The hijacked planes were supposed to take off within 15 minutes of each other. This delay likely gave the cockpit a warning, which may have been the reason United 93 never reached its intended target.
32. In 1970, a 13-year-old boy and his father carried out the first known successful airline hijacking in the Soviet Union, killing a flight attendant in the process. Years later, in 2002, after being granted asylum in the U.S., the son killed his 77-year-old father during a family argument.
33. In 1969, a man hijacked a flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco, stopping to refuel in Denver, New York, Maine, and Ireland before finally landing in Rome. The 6,900-mile journey, the longest hijacking in history, was so he could visit his dying father in Italy.
34. In 1972, Martin McNally, a copycat of D.B. Cooper, hijacked a plane and parachuted out with half a million dollars in ransom money. He dropped the money mid-fall, and it landed in a field where a farmer found it. His fingerprints were taken from the bag, leading to his arrest two days later.
35. In 1972, a man attempted to hijack Pan Am Flight 841 from San Francisco to Saigon with a “bomb” that turned out to be a package full of lemons. He did this as an act of protest against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The hijacking ended when the captain and passengers overpowered and killed the lone hijacker after the plane landed in Saigon.
36 Passengers Fight Back Against Hijackers
On Tianjin Airlines Flight 7554 in 2012, hijackers threatened the passengers, saying, “Whoever stands up will die.” However, when a government official shouted, “Come on! Let’s stand up and fight them,” the passengers successfully subdued the hijackers along with their weapons and explosives.
37. A North Korean agent hijacked a South Korean passenger plane in 1969 and forced it to land in North Korea, accompanied by North Korean Air Force fighter jets. While 39 passengers were eventually released, the fate of the crew and seven other passengers remains unknown.
38. In 1966, a group of Argentinian militants hijacked an Argentinian domestic flight and forced it to land in the Falkland Islands, demanding that British authorities surrender. Argentina still celebrates the hijackers today.
39. Just nine months after its maiden commercial flight, the first Boeing 747 to fly a commercial route also became the first to face hijacking. Seven years later, this aircraft was involved in the Tenerife Airport Disaster, which occurred in 1977, at Los Rodeos Airport (now Tenerife North Airport) in the Canary Islands, Spain. In this tragic incident, two Boeing 747s collided on the runway, resulting in the deaths of 583 people, making it the deadliest aviation accident in history.
40. During the Cold War, a Czechoslovakian pilot hijacked his own plane, sought asylum in West Germany, and later became a commercial pilot for Continental Airlines in the United States.
41 Suicide Hijacker Parachutes Into Wilderness
In 1972, a Czech migrant named Miloslav Hrabinec hijacked a plane in Australia to commit suicide by parachuting into a remote location, hoping to survive for as long as possible before ending his life.
42. In 1978, Egyptian special forces raided Larnaca Airport in Cyprus without authorization from the Cypriot government to intervene in a hijacking. This led to an exchange of heavy gunfire with the Cypriot army, resulting in the deaths of 17 Egyptian commandos.
43. For the September 11 attacks, Al-Qaeda initially planned to fly hijacked jets into nuclear installations rather than the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They ultimately decided against attacking nuclear power plants “for the moment” due to concerns that such an attack could “get out of control.”
44. Exactly six months after the 9/11 attacks, the hijackers’ flight school in Florida received notification from the Immigration and Naturalization Service that two of them had been approved for student visas.
45. Daniel Lewin, a computer science expert, became the first victim of 9/11 when the hijackers stabbed him to death on American Airlines Flight 11. The company he founded, Akamai Technologies, is now worth nearly $3 billion.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Flight 93 Cockpit Voice Recorder Reveals Battle
Passengers on United Airlines Flight 93, one of the planes involved in the September 11 attacks, breached the cockpit. The cockpit voice recorder captured sounds of screaming and crashing, the hijackers reciting the takbir, and then a calm voice in English instructing, “Pull it up.” Five seconds later, the plane crashed.
47. In 1995, the Taliban hijacked a Russian cargo airplane. After a year in captivity, the crew managed to steal their plane back and fly to freedom.
48. In 1962, authorities sent a New Jersey man named George Wright to prison for his involvement in a murder. In 1970, he escaped, hijacked a plane, took a large ransom, and flew to Algeria. Forty years later, Portugal caught him as a fugitive, but refused to extradite him to the U.S., claiming he was now a Portuguese citizen. He remains a free man (as of 2024).
49. In 1971, a flight attendant named Mary Dohey saved the lives of over 200 people when a potential bomber hijacked the plane she was attending. Over the course of eight hours, she managed to convince the hijacker to release every passenger, turning down her own release out of concern for her fellow crew members.
50. Most of the 9/11 hijackers, excluding the pilots, did not know they were embarking on a suicide mission to crash planes into buildings.
#20 is not accurate. The pilots themselves decided they would crash into any planes as they were only loaded with a few hundred training rounds in their guns. The armory was on the other side of Andrews AFB and t&eremwas no time to load missiles.
RE: Fact #4 (Flight Attendant Hero Saves Passengers) – Her life is a movie, called Neerja. Her mom met Sonam Kapoor, who played Neerja in the movie, and she said, “My daughter was prettier!”
She was
That movie really got to me. When it ended, it was dead quiet, and then all I could hear were sniffles all around. It was crazy, everyone was crying, even the guys!
RE: Fact #26 (Survivors Drowned After Plane Crash) – I don’t get why they just tell you not to inflate your life jacket before getting off the plane. They don’t explain why. Like, if the plane fills with water and you’ve got your life jacket inflated, you’ll end up stuck on the ceiling. Seems like if they just said that, more people would realize how important it is to wait until you’re outside.
RE: Fact #7 (9/11 Attendant Alerts Ground Crew) – Can you believe the guy who decided to shut down all US airspace was on his very first day?
RE: Fact #1 (wiss Air Force Off-Duty Gap) – Haha sorry dude, I just got out of work, can it wait till Monday?
This one time, customs just completely messed up and didn’t have anyone around when a whole bunch of sailors came in after their big race. They’d been going at it nonstop for a week, and they just wanted a shower and some sleep, but customs was like “not our problem!” The race has been going on forever, since 1975, so you’d think they’d have someone on duty, right? There are usually two customs officers at the main ports after hours.
Sailing to Bermuda, the steering chain in the binnacle snapped. We managed to fix it with some dyneema line and made it to port. We paid a fortune to ship a new chain overnight, but customs wouldn’t even look at it! Our weather window was closing, so we sailed on to St. Maarten after a few days. We were stuck in St. Maarten for three days because the customs officers were MIA. The local police told the captain that if customs didn’t show up by 10am, they wouldn’t even come in at all that day!
Thankfully US customs didn’t ask about the missing passport stamp when I flew back.
If the office hours are posted, it’s their problem.
Swiss people think they’re funny? Try doing an exercise with the Dutch air force. Those guys are unionized and don’t care about anything, but they’re great to get drunk with.
RE: Fact #18 (Passengers Brave Fight on Flight 93) – After talking it over, the passengers decided to fight back against the hijackers. They told people on the ground what they were planning to do. One of the passengers, Thomas Burnett Jr., called his wife and said, “I know we’re all going to die, but three of us are going to do something about it. I love you, honey.” Another passenger, Todd Beamer, was heard saying, “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.” Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and told him she was filling pitchers with boiling water. Her last words were: “Everyone’s running to first class. I’ve got to go. Bye.”
It’s impossible to imagine what those passengers were thinking, knowing they were going to die. But they did the right thing. They made history.
RE: Fact #43 (Al-Qaeda Considered Nuclear Hijacking Targets) – My dad worked on the last nuclear power plant built in the US, so I remember him talking about the reactor building. It’s pretty deep underground, surrounded by tons of concrete and steel. A plane would have a hard time getting through even to the ground level, let alone all the way down to the actual reactor.
RE: Fact #12 (Hijacker’s Daughter Hijacks TWA Flight) – My dad, he pulled off a bank heist when I was little. He got out and did it again, same bank, everything. Then he got caught, again. Some people just don’t learn.
He ended up working in the fishing industry in Alaska and seemed to do okay. But we never really got close again.
RE: Fact #42 (Egypt-Cyprus Hijacking Ends in Bloodshed) – Wow, that’s some serious incompetence.
It’s almost funny how bad it is. You know, when your military promotes people based on who they know, this is what you get.
Not many special forces teams have the skills to pull off a hostage rescue on a plane. It’s like trying to have a gunfight in a phone booth.
Charging it with a jeep? That’s just ridiculous.
RE: Fact #9 (Flight Engineer Stops Hijacker) – I can just imagine one of those tiny whiskey bottles falling right on his head.
That’s like something straight out of a Mel Brooks or Leslie Nielsen movie.
RE: Fact #46 (Flight 93 Cockpit Voice Recorder Reveals Battle) – Before 9/11, it was pretty easy to break into a cockpit. Now they’re reinforced and almost impossible to get into. On that Germanwings flight, they couldn’t even break the door down with an axe.
That’s why they have the two-person rule in the cockpit. Most modern planes have doors that can’t be opened from the outside, so they need two people in there. Otherwise, if someone wanted to do something bad, there’s no way to stop them.
RE: Fact #17 (Drunk Hijacker Demands More Beer) – Alright, listen up everyone! It’s Norway or bust.
Chill out, just give the guy his beer and point him to runway 4-4.
Runways are numbered based on their direction, so you can’t have a runway 44.
RE: Fact #12 (Hijacker’s Daughter Hijacks TWA Flight) – Daughter: “Hey Dad, when did we start taking over stuff?”
Dad: “It all started when our ancestors took over the wheel…”
Kronk swiped our ancestor Lunk’s fire, so he decided to get back at him by stealing his new invention, the wheel.
RE: Fact #4 (Flight Attendant Hero Saves Passengers) – This guy on the flight was a guest speaker at a class I took a while back. He was one of the few who actually opened a door on the plane, you know, the one over the wing. He got to the back of the wing and was about to jump down when he said he never really thought about how high a 747 wing actually is.
The back door with the slide was open, so he got a running start and jumped from the wing onto the slide. A few people tried to follow him, but most of them missed and hit the ground. Turns out he’s a really good racquetball player, so he’s pretty athletic.
Anyway, it was a pretty cool story.
I thought they were flying, haha!
RE: Fact #7 (9/11 Attendant Alerts Ground Crew) – That poor woman, she probably knew she was going to die, but stayed on the line so it wouldn’t be worse for others.
RE: Fact #4 (Flight Attendant Hero Saves Passengers) – The kid, he was seven back then, is now a captain for a big airline. He says Bhanot inspired him, that he owes his whole life to her.
This is the real deal for those who already know.
I wouldn’t even want to be a passenger after that, let alone fly the thing. Good for him.
RE: Fact #5 (Injured Pilots Foil Hijacker) – Working at the FedEx hub, this whole thing really bummed me out. It killed one of the best things about the job: free flights. Back then, anyone could hop on a FedEx plane for free, going wherever it was headed. My buddy and I used to fly to the Caribbean on Fridays for fishing trips, back by Sunday night, the whole thing on the house. This guy totally messed it up.
It would’ve been better to never have gotten the perk in the first place than having it taken away.
RE: Fact #48 (Fugitive George Wright’s Escape Hijacking) – This guy was involved in a robbery and murder back in ’62. The victim? A World War II veteran, at his own gas station. He got sent to prison for a long time, 15 to 30 years. But after only eight years, he escaped, just like that! He stole the warden’s car and took off with some buddies. They even dressed up one of them as a priest. Then, with a gun hidden in a Bible, they hijacked a plane! He demanded the biggest ransom ever at that time, just to free the passengers. Then he took the crew with him, flew to Boston to refuel, and finally escaped to Africa. He ended up in Guinea Bissau, became a humanitarian worker, and everyone liked him. Later, he moved to Portugal using a fake name and started a family. He lived a double life for years, but he finally got caught. Even though Portugal knew he was using a fake ID, they refused to hand him over to the US twice! They said he was a Portuguese citizen. He got away with everything, man!
RE: Fact #43 (Al-Qaeda Considered Nuclear Hijacking Targets) – Most nuclear power plants are built strong enough to handle a big crash, like a plane hitting them.
So, if humor is tragedy plus time, I’m thinking about this crazy idea: terrorists attack the US again, but this time they hijack planes and fly them into nuclear plants. Everyone around the plant is freaking out, watching the plane come closer and closer, thinking it’s going to be a nuclear 9/11. They’re about to die, counting down the seconds until the plane hits. Then, bam! The plane just crumples like a can in a cartoon, and the plant only gets a tiny dent.
RE: Fact #24 (Future Pakistani Leader Greets Hijackers) – I get that there are two sides to every story, but it’s hard not to think the Pakistani government is really out of touch. They just don’t seem to get how their actions make them look to the rest of the world.
Like, India can buy weapons from anyone they want, but Pakistan is stuck with these old US planes and cheap Chinese stuff. It’s because their behavior makes people distrust them.
China only sells to them because they both want to control Kashmir, it’s got that important water supply. And the US only keeps giving them parts for their old equipment. Otherwise, they’d be stuck with those cheap Chinese planes.
RE: Fact #11 (Co-Pilot Disarms Hijacker’s Bomb) – That’s like 127 lives today, if you adjust for inflation.
RE: Fact #8 (D.B. Cooper’s DNA Lost) – The FBI actually has his DNA, from the tie he left behind when he jumped.
RE: Fact #2 (Real Hijacking Halts Movie Filming) – Melvin Rotherberg thought the event was a real stroke of luck, especially after the bad acting.
RE: Fact #6 (Lead Hijacker Survives Crash) – That’s a total Archer move!
I almost heard him laugh, “Woooo!”
RE: Fact #3 (Pilot’s Clever French Instructions) – Imagine being stuck on a plane with everyone arguing, and you can’t understand a word they’re saying. And then the plane starts shaking!
The service was terrible. I asked for water and the guy serving me pulled a gun on me.
RE: Fact #23 (Castro Arrests American Hijackers) – The same trick was used to get someone out of a Mexican prison back in 1971. They made a movie about it with Charles Bronson as the pilot.
RE: Fact #6 (Lead Hijacker Survives Crash) – Made it through by using cartoon logic. Check out Bugs Bunny to see how it works.
RE: Fact #13 (China Airport Collision After Hijacking) – Am I the only one who thinks it’s weird to single out a captain’s injury? There must have been tons of people hurt.
Everyone on the plane, except a few crew members, had already gotten off by the time the thing happened.
RE: Fact #19 (Passengers Mistake Hijacking for Prank) – It looks pretty much the same to me as the regular stock market.
RE: Fact #16 (Flaps Signal Aircraft Hijacking Alert) – You’ll see a lot of planes with their flaps down in the winter. We do that to make sure the de-icers can clean the ice off the flaps before we take off again. I’m an airline pilot, so I know what I’m talking about.
RE: Fact #17 (Drunk Hijacker Demands More Beer) – He kinda played it safe. He could’ve asked for more.
RE: Fact #8 (D.B. Cooper’s DNA Lost) – I think it’s funny that some people say he’s Tommy Wiseau. They both have the same kinda face and that weird way of talking. And apparently people who know Tommy say he’s way older than he claims and he just appeared in Hollywood with a ton of cash out of nowhere.
RE: Fact #46 (Flight 93 Cockpit Voice Recorder Reveals Battle) – I was at work that day. The people on UA 93 were heroes, they saved so many lives. I still get choked up thinking about what they did.
9/11 changed this country for the worse. But the people on those flights, the people in the towers, and everyone who rushed in to help, they were all heroes, every single one of them.
RE: Fact #8 (D.B. Cooper’s DNA Lost) – It’s one of the weirdest true stories ever. Part of me thinks he died, but then you’d think they would have found something, like his body or his parachute.