From: Nhan Tran <tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com>
Subject: NEWS/VN: Hijacking plane on route to HCM city
Originator: daemon@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Reply-To: tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com
Organization: SCV Relay
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 14:06:44 GMT


09/05

BRF--Vietnam-Hijack

Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

   BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- A man briefly hijacked a Vietnamese jetliner and
hurled mysterious leaflets through a hatch before parachuting out, airline
industry officials said Saturday.
   The man, believed to be Vietnamese, commandeered the Vietnam Airways jet
Friday as it approached Ho Chi Minh City on a flight from Bangkok, the Bulgarian
news agency BTA reported.
   He ordered the plane, an Airbus 310 leased from the Bulgarian company Jes Air
and flown by a Bulgarian crew, to descend to 1,200 feet, where he scattered the
leaflets and bailed out, said Nikolay Andreev, a Jes Air flight operation
officer.
   The man's motive and the content of the leaflets were unknown, said Andreev,
contacted in Sofia, Bulgaria by The Associated Press.
   Andreev said he didn't know how many passengers were on the plane.
   According to BTA, Vietnamese security forces were searching for the hijacker.
   Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, is named after the late Communist leader
of North Vietnam, which overran South Vietnam after the U.S. pullout in 1975.

----------------------------------------------------

09/05

POLICE CAPTURE HIJACKER IN VIETNAM

    By Kathleen Callo
    HANOI, Sept 5, Reuter - A man of Vietnamese origin has been captured after
he hijacked a Vietnam Airlines plane over Ho Chi Minh City to distribute
leaflets, then parachuted out of the aircraft, residents of the city said on
Saturday.
    The residents, who asked not to be identified, said the man -- believed to
be a U.S. citizen -- brandished a knife and demanded the Airbus 310 fly low as
it approached Ho Chi Minh City on Friday afternoon after leaving Bangkok.
    "It flew so low it almost stalled," one resident said, quoting an Australian
passenger, Paul Dempsey, and Vietnamese officials.
    The private Bulgarian air company, Jess, which leased the Airbus to Vietnam
Airlines, confirmed in Sofia on Friday that the hijacking had taken place.
    Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat airport, when asked for confirmation, told
reporters on Saturday only that the aircraft had had mechanical problems and one
door was broken. It said it would release another statement later on Saturday.
    The residents said the hijacker grabbed a woman flight attendant on the
plane, wrapped piano wire around her neck and forced her to the cockpit. He made
the crew open a cockpit window, then threw leaflets out.
    "He said he wanted to liberate Vietnam," said another resident, contacted by
telephone.
    The hijacker forced the crew to circle low over the city five times, before
making the flight attendant open a door in the cabin for him to parachute out.
    The plane then made a sharp incline and later landed safely -- with one
broken door -- at Tan Son Nhat.
    None of the crew and 200 passengers on board was injured.
    "He was lucky he wasn't killed, parachuting out like that," the second
resident said. He said the flight attendant was nearly sucked out of the plane.
    The residents said the man, in his mid-40s, landed somewhere on the
outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City and was captured by police two hours later.
    Vietnam's communist government made it difficult for the tens of thousands
of people who fled the country after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 to
return.
    But in recent years it has encouraged many to return to visit, saying it
needs help from overseas Vietnamese to rebuild the country.
    Tens of thousands have been back to visit friends and look for business
deals in the past couple of years.
    There have been several bizarre cases since the war of Vietnamese exiles
returning to Vietnam by land across Laos in small armed groups, supposedly to
try to overthrow the Hanoi government.

---------------------------------------------------

09/07

VIETNAM TO PROSECUTE ITS FIRST HIJACKER

    By Kathleen Callo
    HANOI, Sept 7, Reuter - Vietnamese authorities were preparing on Monday to
prosecute the country's first hijacker, a man believed to have been a pilot in
the former South Vietnamese air force, Hanoi airline officials said on Monday.
    The Vietnam-born man, Ly Dong, was captured in Ho Chi Minh City after he
hijacked a Vietnamese Airlines plane, forced it to circle low over the city,
dropped anti-government leaflets from the crew's cockpit window and then escaped
by parachute, airline officials said.
    He was believed to be a naturalised American, Ho Chi Minh City residents
said.
    Vietnamese Airlines flight VN 850 had left Bangkok with 115 people
passengers and crew and was approaching Ho Chi Minh City on Friday when the man
pulled out a knife, said he had a bomb and forced a flight attendant to take him
to the cockpit, airline officials said.
    He demanded that the crew fly him to some unidentified destination, but they
told him the aircraft needed to land and refuel.
    "The crew were very calm. They handled it very well," one airline official
told Reuters, asking not to be identified.
    The man threw leaflets out of a cockpit window that urged people to rise up
and overthrow Hanoi's communist government, residents said.
    He then jumped out of an emergency exit in the cockpit as the aircraft flew
at 400 mph (650 kph), 2,000 metres (6,600 feet) above the ground, airline
officials said.
    The aircraft crew had alerted security forces on the ground and the man was
captured two hours later on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.
    "This hijacking seriously violated Vietnamese and international laws on
civil aviation. The hijacker will be duly punished by law," the official Vietnam
News newspaper reported on Monday, quoting Vietnam Airlines.
    The newspaper said the man was captured with the help of local militiamen.
    Foreign businessmen in Ho Chi Minh City said airline and airport officials
caused unnecessary confusion by denying that any hijacking had taken place.
    After the plane landed safely in the early evening at Ho Chi Minh City's Tan
Son Nhat airport, Vietnam Airlines told reporters only that there had been a
mechanical problem and that a door on the aircraft was broken.
    It was only on Saturday that the airline confirmed there had been a
hijacking.
    Vietnamese Airlines officials said the hijacker was familiar with the
cockpit controls of the Airbus 300 and was believed to have been an air force
pilot for the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government, which was defeated by the
communists in 1975.
    They said he had apparently carried the parachute on board the plane in his
hand luggage from Bangkok and appeared to be an experienced parachutist.