NOTE FOR TIME RECORD
The Attempted Hijacking of a China Airlines Aircraft
I asked Mr Tan of the NCNA to call today to tell him about the "hijacking" incident. I told him that I thought the authorities in China would legitimately be concerned about what had happened and that I there.ore wished to give him a frank account of the incident as seen by us. The whole incident had occurred very quickly. Air Traffic Control at Kai Tak had heard repercussions of a struggle on the Intercom and had noticed that the aircraft had veered sharply towards China. Very soon thereafter the aircraft had come back on course and had landed safely with the alleged hijacker, Shih, dead.
2.
I said the police had 'questioned the injured pilot and flight officer. Both had said that the attack by Shih was sudden and unprovoked. lle had made no demands about flying to China but had been heard to mutter something like: "want to die with you".
The only other evidence available to us was some notes found in Shih's pocket. These contained details of the route for an aircraft from roughly Tainan in Taiwan to shant'ou (Swatow). They also contained what appeared to be co-ordinates for a flight from Hong Kong to White Cloud Airport in Canton. I explained to Mr Tan that a copy of these notes had been given to China Airlines officials shortly after the kijacking incident at a time when our officials were not clear what they meant. Subsequently a version (accurate in all essential respects) had been published in the local newspaper Ming Pao. I gave Mr Tan a copy of the original version marked "Confidential".
3.
I told Mr Tan that from the evidence available to us it was clear that Shih at some stage had in mind the possibility of taking an aircraft to China. There was; however, no evidence from our investigations that he had actually attempted to hijack this particular aircraft. As Mr Tan would know, the pilot was alleged to have said on returning to Taiwan that Shih had demanded that the aircraft should be flown to China. Nothing of this sort had been said during our own enquiries, It was not for me to try to guess why there was a discrepancy between the two versions.
4.
I also said to ir Tan that I would like to assure him that if in future an attempt was made to divert an aircraft to China, our Air Traffic Control authorities would get in touch with Canton as quickly as posible, On this occasion everything had happened very quickly. Furthermore, there was no evidence at the time of a hijack attempt to China. Therefore there had been no contact between Kai Tak and Canton.
5.
Mr Tan thanked me for giving him all these details. In answer to a comment by mo, he confirmed that China was opposed to the hijacking of civilian aircraft which would put innocent passengers at risk. He said he wished to repeat the Chinese Government's well-known vicu that Paivan vas a province of China. I said we hed ecuated the position in our statement on the exchang of sheenadors
The sting was relaxed and Puderda
17 Hench. 1979
onl