PLANE HELD AT PISTOL POINT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26986, 11 March 1953, Page 3

PLANE HELD AT PISTOL POINT

CHINESE SENTENCED FOR MURDER

(Rec. 11 p.m.) MANILA, March 10. A Chinese gunman, who killed the pilot and purser of a Philippines Airlines plane while trying to force them to fly him to Communist China, was sentenced to life imprisonment today. Ang Tiu Chok had pleaded guilty to charges of shooting a Philippines Airlines pilot, Pedro Perlas, and purser, Eduardo Diago, on December 30, during a terror-filled flight over the South China Sea. Ang, who was fleeing the Philippines, had booked a passage on the airliner for a routine inter-itland flight. As soon as the plane was airborne, Ang entered the cockpit, pulled a gun and ordered the pilot to mike for the Chinese mainland. Perlas was shot when he attempted to knock Ang off balance by throwing the plane into a violent manoeuvre. The purser/ Diago. met the same fate when he rushed to the pilot’s compartment to check the reason for the aerobatics. Ang might have succeeded in his plan if the plane, under the control of the co-pilot, had not been intercented by Chinese Nationalist fighters and forced to land on the island of Kinmen, in the Formosa Straits. The murderer surrendered meekly to the Chinese Natiohalists and was returned to the Philippines to stand trial.