Acid-threat hijacker extradited from Taiwan to go on trial

China will put a man extradited from Taiwan on trial for hijacking a plane eight years ago.

In August 1993, Hebei province resident Shi Yuebo slipped past airport security checks at Beijing Capital Airport and boarded flight CA973 with a container of acid, the Beijing Morning Post reported yesterday.

As the 137 passengers and 15 crew members were too afraid to subdue the man out of fear of being burned, they complied with his request an hour after take-off to divert the Boeing 767 originally bound for Xiamen, Fujian province, to Taipei.

Although Shi told Taiwanese authorities after his surrender that several accomplices had helped him, it eventually was determined he was the sole culprit behind the incident.

Shi was returned to Beijing on June 28 this year, along with seven of the 16 hijackers who tried to commandeer 13 mainland planes into Taiwan between 1993 and 1998. The mainland conducted a massive overhaul of airport security after 12 of these incidents occurred between 1993 and 1994.

Although Taiwan handed over five of these hijackers to mainland authorities in February 1999, Shi's extradition was delayed after he and three others hijackers attacked a Taiwanese official with a metal door handle during a flight to the outlying island of Quemoy.