The first recorded air hijacking took place on February 21, 1931
in Arequipa, Peru. Armed revolutionaries approached American
pilot Byron Rickards and tried, unsuccessfully, to force him to
fly them to their destination. After a ten-day stand-off, the
revolution had apparently succeeded without the hijackers and
Byron flew one of their number to Lima. Air hijacking is defined
as the seizing of control of an aircraft for purposes other than
flying to the original destination. There are cases of self-
hijacking in which a commercial airline pilot has seized his
craft to take it somewhere other than its scheduled destination.
Air hijackings are typically although not universally
politically motivated. A successful air hijacking appears to
consist of the following components: the aircraft, hijackers
with the will to carry out the hijacking, a crew that can be
convinced of the hijackers’ ability and willingness to carry out
their threats, and a friendly destination. After the first
hijacking attempt in the thirties