The 1950s and 60s are often in the early 1970s

hijackings of flights originating from the US

were quite literally out of control.

When the US government passed the anti hijacking act of 1974

it was a direct response to what is now sometimes called

the golden age of skyjackings.

In fact, between 1960 in 1974 there

were 240 hijackings or attempted hijackings between the US

and Cuba alone.

So today we're going to take a look at the Golden age of plane

hijackings.

But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird

History channel and let us know in the comments

below what other aviation related topics

you would to hear about.

Now if you look at the center of your screen

you'll notice this Weird History explainer video.

On May 1st, 1961 and Antulio Ramirez Ortiz

took over the cockpit of a national Airlines flight

on his way to Key West, Florida.

He had a gun and a knife and he demanded to be taken to Cuba.

So he could warn Fidel Castro of an assassination plot

against him.

Ortiz said he was a Castro loyalist who

left Cuba looking for work but now wanted

to return to his native land.

When the plane arrived in Cuba.

Castro returned it the crew and the other passengers

within a day.

Ortiz stayed in Cuba two years later

Ortiz tried to leave again.

However, this time he was arrested.

And in 1965 he was sentenced to three years

in prison for espionage.

When he got out of prison he tried to leave yet again

and wound up spending another three years in prison

in the early 1970s.

He finally made it out of Cuba again in 1975.

His triumph was short lived however,

because he was immediately arrested for the 1961 hijacking

upon arrival in the US.

He spent four years in prison in the US.

Although it's hard to believe now

at the time of Ortiz hijacking the US

had no official policies regarding air piracy.

So instead, he was charged with assault

and transporting a stolen aircraft across state lines.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were characterized

by an epidemic of hijackings and most of the planes

were taken in the US and then redirected to Cuba.

The reasons for these hijackings varied widely

with the perpetrators wanting everything

from being able to study communism

to getting some decent free holli's that's not a bad joke.

Seriously a guy hijacked an airplane for free holli's

hijacking for pizza I get free holli's

that's more of jaywalking.

The US Congress decided to take action

and as a result of Senate hearings

the Federal Aviation Administration

set up a task force to explore counter hijacking techniques.

Previously pilots had been given guns

but obviously that wasn't too effective.

Now operating under the theory that the best offense would

be a good defense the government mandated

that airline passengers were to be

sent through metal detectors.

Additionally, the first hijacker profile was established.

If there's one thing the world has learned from social media

and internet comments it's that everyone thinks they're

an expert on everything.

So when hijackings became a problem and the FAA

decided they wanted to take action.

You can bet your house the average airline passenger had

a few ideas on what should be done

and they weren't afraid to say so.

Passengers understandably wanted to protect themselves.

So they chimed in and offered suggestions

ranging from cartoonishly impractical booby traps

to screening processes rooted in bigoted paranoia.

Some of the more memorable examples

of passenger suggestions included,

installing trapdoors outside cockpits,

arming stewardesses with tranquilizer darts,

and playing the Cuban national anthem before takeoff

and then arresting anyone who knew the lyrics.

Lucky for everyone the FAA decided

to listen to the experts.

Although it may not be the most exciting or gratifying strategy

simply giving in to an armed skyjackers

demands was the safest, most practical option

for airline pilots.

So that's what they were told to do cockpits were equipped

with maps of the Caribbean, pilots

were told about the landing facilities

at Havana's Jose Marti International Airport,

and they were given cards with rudimentary Spanish

so they could communicate with any potential hijacker.

An official Cuba hijack phone line

was installed at Miami air traffic

control in the Swiss who were the US

is diplomatic intermediaries created

a form that could be used to request the return of planes.

Castro for his part was really more interested

in embarrassing the US than anything else.

So most of the planes were eventually returned albeit

with a heavy fee attached

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Raffaele Minichiello, skyjacked a flight in October of 1969 one

that had several stop offs before reaching

its final destination.

He flew from Los Angeles to San Francisco

where he hijack a plane and demanded

to be taken to New York guys racking up the miles.

The plane stopped in Denver and the passengers were released.

After refueling in New York FBI agents

tried to keep Minichiello from taking off again.

Born in Italy, Minichiello wanted to go home

and after firing his gun was allowed to continue on a flight

to Rome.

He escaped capture when he landed in Rome

but was later tracked down by police and taken into custody.

Italy refused to extradite him and tried him in Rome instead.

His actions woke up FAA and FBI officials as well as

highjackers to the possibility of taking flights to a location

other than Cuba which was something they had never really

considered for no reason other than it had almost never come

up before.

So why was Minichiello so mad?

What drove him to do it?

Well he said he was shorted $200 in one of his paychecks

as a US Marine you guys don't rip off a Marine.

Most of the planes hijacked in the late 1960s and early 1970s

were relatively small carrying about 100 passengers

on average.

In 1973 however, when a hijacker identified as R

Campos commandeered American Airlines flight 299

from New York to San Juan.

He took a plane with 379 passengers on board to Cuba.

The plane landed safely in Cuba and was greeted by Fidel Castro

himself.

Castro chatted with a pilot Captain Augustus Watkins

and inspected the 747 while assuring him

that the plane would be able to take off Despite its size

and a lack of appropriate runway space at the Cuban airport

What can't Castro do?

The plane did take off shortly after landing

and made its way to Miami after FBI agents debriefed Watkins

the 747 departed for San Juan arriving only about

seven hours late.

Most all hijackers up until this point had been men

but not all hijackers are men.

Take Catherine Marie Kerkow who along with fellow Black Panther

Roger Holder hijacked Western Airlines flight

701 from Los Angeles to Seattle by claiming to have a bomb.

They demanded $500,000 and let the plane land in San Francisco

once on the ground Kerkow and her colleague boarded a plane

to Algeria where they were granted asylum

not cool Algeria.

She was charged with air piracy by a federal court in 1972

and a warrant was issued for her arrest.

In 1975 the two were arrested for trying

to illegally enter France.

They were found guilty and fined and they were released but not

allowed to leave Paris.

Kerkow however, left Holder was extradited to the US but Kerkow

whereabouts are unknown.

She remains on the most wanted list for domestic terrorism.

After hijacking a Pan American flight headed

to Puerto Rico in 1968, Louis Armando Pena Soltren

spent over 40 years in Cuba.

According to accounts Soltren and two accomplices

stormed the cockpit with weapons he snuck

on the flight in a diaper bag.

His fellow hijackers were arrested and sent back

to prison in the US.

But Soltren was protected and he had

a long tenure as a fugitive in Cuba before returning to the US

in 2009.

However, the US doesn't forget hijackers and upon his return

in 2011 he faced air piracy and kidnapping charges

and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In 1972 three criminals hijacked a plane in Birmingham,

Alabama shortly after it took off.

They ordered the pilot to fly around the country for a while

and demanded a $10 million ransom.

At one point they even threatened

to have the plane crash into the nuclear facility

at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Despite the bluster however, the affair

eventually ended thankfully without a nuclear explosion.

But the incident wasn't completely bloodless either.

The first officer was shot and 31 passengers

were held hostage for 29 hours.

In 1974 Samuel Byck hijacked a Delta Airlines flight leaving

Baltimore, Maryland and he had big plans

namely the crashed the plane into the White House.

Byck had a gun and a bomb on board

when he got to the cockpit of the plane

he shot both the co-pilot and the pilot killing the first

and injuring the latter.

Thanks to the unsmart thinking of taking out the pilot.

Byck never got the plane off of the ground

then a police officer pursued him

who shot him while he was still in the plane.

Accounts vary as to whether or not

the cop killed Byck or merely wounded him

before Byck took his own life.

Byck didn't get to carry his plan out

but he did leave his mark on pop culture.

He's a character in Stephen Sondheim's and John wideman's

1991 musical assassins and he was

portrayed by Sean Penn in the 2004 film

the assassination of Richard Nixon.

He's even alleged to be one of the inspirations

for the character Travis Bickle who

was played by Robert De Niro in the 1976 hit film Taxi Driver.

Possibly, the most famous jacker of all time

was the enigmatic Dan Cooper who threw a mistake propagated

by the mass media became known to the world DB Cooper.

Cooper whoever he may have been famously

hijacked a Northwest Airlines flight in 1971

over Washington State.

After the flight landed in Seattle authorities

delivered him $200,000 as well as several parachutes.

He demanded to be taken to Mexico

and the plane took off again.

While heading South Cooper parachuted out

of the plane never to be seen again.

While the FBI believes Cooper likely

couldn't have survived his jump given the weather conditions

and gear he was wearing there are Nonetheless

lots of theories about what happened to him.

There have been no traces of Cooper himself

since the hijacking however, in 1980

three packets of Cooper's ransom money

were discovered in the Sandy river bank of the Columbia

River.

And in 2017 authorities found what

they thought was a strap from his parachute in the Pacific

Northwest.

As the 1970s wore on airplane hijackings

became more brazen, more global, and more extortionist

threatening passengers lives for money

and then using the planes to escape with a preferred

methods of skyjacking.

To end the situation once and for all the FBI

began sending snipers to tarmacs and plainclothes

agents began boarding planes.

Finally, on January 5, 1973 all passengers