Written by: Sauharda Bajracharya - 26010, Grade VIII
Posted on: 29 April, 2021
This story took place back in March, 1970. Flight 351 was taking off from Tokyo(Capital of Japan) to Fukuoka(Northern shore of Japan). It had left Tokyo's Haneda Airport and was now 31,000 feet up in the sky. The Boeing 737 plane was a domestic flight and it had very little fuel, it carried 122 passengers(excluding the hijackers) and 7 crew members. The plane had numbers of high ranking people, like the Executive of Pepsi, Tokyo’s renowned bass player and a Roman Priest from New York. No one was ready for what was going to happen. At 7:30 am when the plane was flying over Mount Fuji, a man stood up from his seat to make an announcement. He took out his Samurai sword(Katana) and told that he was hijacking the plane. This man was Takamaro Tamiya who was just 27. This was the first time anyone had ever hijacked a plane in Japan, and back in the 1970's plane hijacking was not illegal and airport checking was lenient. There were 122 passengers and him alone couldn’t hijack the plane, so he brought 9 other people who were still in their Universities and the youngest amongst them was just 16 years old. The hijackers tied the male passengers and one of the most shocking things was the identity of one hijacker, he was the renowned bass player of Japan. The hijackers tried breaking in the cockpit whilst the pilots were contacting for help, soon they broke in. Their plan was to fly to Cuba as it was a communist country and they were part of the Red Army Faction of Japan which was the communist party of Japan. They were trying to bring world revolution by causing terror. As I said, it was a domestic flight so it had only enough fuel to fly to Fukuoka. The pilots explained this to the hijackers and they had to come with a different plan. So, they landed in Fukuoka, refilled the plane and by this time the hijacking news had been read all over the country and the Vice Minister of Transportation and the hijackers made a deal and the deal was that the hijackers would release 23 passengers for more fuel. Now, they had to go to a new destination as Cuba was too far. So after thinking a lot, they chose North Korea as it was another communist country. The Vice Minister of Transportation contacted the CIA(Central Intelligence Agency) as the plane boarded many Americans including the Pepsi’s Executive and the Roman Priest from New York. The plan was to fly to Pyongyang in North Korea. But the North Koreans didn’t know the flight was coming and the plane could be very easily shot down. The Vice Minister of Transportation and the CIA thought a lot and finally they made a plan. Instead of the flight landing in North Korea, It would now land in South Korea. With this plan, they contacted the South Korean Ministry and the pilots to talk about this plan and the South Korean Ministry accepted it. The plane would land in Seoul in South Korea but the Hijackers didn’t know this. So, quickly the South Korean Ministry made Seoul Airport look like Pyongyang’s airport by putting North Korean signs and people dressed in North Korean clothes and children singing North Korean anthem. This plan was set and the plane landed in Seoul in South Korea. The hijackers thought it was North Korea, but when they found out it was South Korea they threatened to kill the remaining passengers. The Vice Minister of Transportation volunteered to take place instead of the other passengers to save them. The hijackers accepted and they flew to Pyongyang in North Korea. On April 5, the crew and the Vice Minister of Transportation returned back to Tokyo and the Hijackers each were given sentences of 20 years in prison. When the 20 years sentence got over, one of the hijackers tried to flee North Korea and was killed there.
