Is it legal to hijack a plane?

In most jurisdictions of the world, aircraft hijacking is punishable by life imprisonment or a long prison sentence. In most jurisdictions where the death penalty is a legal punishment, aircraft hijacking is a capital crime, including in China, India, Liberia and the U.S. states of Georgia and Mississippi.



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In May 2021, a Ryanair commercial jet was intercepted by Belarusian authorities while flying over Belarus on route to Vilnius, Lithuania. This occurrence is considered to be the most recent hijacking incident in the global aviation industry.

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Hijacked - Flight 73: Hostage who survived the 1986 Pan Am plane attack finds out why one of the terrorists spared his life. Mike Thexton was returning to the UK from a months-long mountaineering trek when the Pan Am 73 plane was taken over by terrorists in Karachi in 1986.

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1985 – TWA Flight 847 The hijackers, Mohammed Ali Hamadei alongside another person, held the plane's 153 passengers and crew hostage for 17 days, forcing the plane's captain to go back and forth several times between Algeria and Lebanon before landing in Beirut.

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The number of hijackings has dwindled in recent years. About 50 have been reported since Sept, 11, 2001, and none in the U.S., according to the Aviation Safety Network. One of the most recent incidents occurred in April 2014.

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It remains the only unsolved hijacking in US aviation history. An artist's rendering of D.B. Cooper, who hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305 out of Portland, Oregon, and demanded $200,000 in ransom.

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In the event of a hijacking, the pilot should divert and land the aircraft at the nearest suitable airport, where controllers can prioritize its landing and provide necessary assistance.

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On December 16, 1960, a United Airlines Douglas DC-8 bound for Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport) in New York City collided in midair with a TWA Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation descending toward LaGuardia Airport.

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There are currently about 18,000 commercial flights a day, and if that person's trip has four flights associated with it, the odds against that person's being on a crashed plane are about 135,000 to 1. If there were only one hijacked plane per month, the odds would be about 540,000 to 1.

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