On this day, May 1, in 1961, a passenger commits the first airline hijacking within the United States. Antulio Ramirez Ortiz, 34, held a steak knife to the pilot’s throat and a gun on the co-pilot, and forced the Key West bound National Airline plane departing from Miami to land in Havana.
Ortiz, a Fidel Castro sympathizer, said he wanted to warn the Cuban premier of an assassination attempt.
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Ortiz eventually became disillusioned by Castro, who suspected him of being a spy and sent him to prison for six years.
Fourteen years after the hijacking, Ortiz was arrested in Miami trying to re-enter the U.S.
He pleaded guilty to kidnapping — since there was no federal hijacking law at the time of his crime — and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
— Scott McCabe
