What Happened on This Day in History?
On July 16, 1948, a group of men stormed the cockpit of the Miss Macao, a Cathay Pacific seaplane, in what became the first-ever hijacking of a commercial aircraft in history. The hijackers intended to rob the passengers and ransom the plane, but the pilot resisted, the plane crashed, and nearly everyone on board died.
Why It's Strange
The world's very first commercial plane hijacking was not a political act or a dramatic escape attempt - it was a straightforward robbery gone catastrophically wrong, with the hijackers accidentally dooming themselves along with their victims.
