When a China Airlines plane was almost hijacked by a Taiwanese flight engineer
As the Boeing 737 was making its descent into Hong Kong, Shih Ming-cheng struck the pilot, ordering him to redirect the plane to the mainland
“Pilot tells of battle to foil China hijack,” ran a headline in the South China Morning Post on March 14, 1978.
“[Kao Chih-shiang] the pilot of a China Airlines plane [who was] involved in last week’s mid-air battle near Hongkong said today that the flight engineer [Shih Ming-cheng] ordered him to fly to China,” the story continued, recounting for the first time a deadly incident in the cockpit of a flight from Kaohsiung, in Taiwan, five days earlier.
As the Boeing 737 was making its final descent into Hong Kong on March 9, Shih, a native of Changhua, in Taiwan, leapt up and struck Kao in the head with a hammer and, brandishing a pair of scissors, made his demand, the pilot told reporters.
Co-pilot Kung Chung-kang rushed to his aid, giving Kao time to broadcast a cry for help over the plane’s announcement system. Plain-clothes sky marshal Cheng Liang, an army veteran and former boxing champion, broke down the locked cockpit door and shot the attacker dead.
“Forget it, I don’t want to live any more,” were the dying words of Shih, who carried in his pocket a flight plan he had hoped would help him navigate to the mainland.