Bizarre Suicide Attempt

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32381, 21 August 1970, Page 11

Bizarre Suicide Attempt

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LONDON, Aug. 20.

A Japanese who seized an airliner in a suicide attempt was in the hands of the police today, after the most dramatic of three aircraft hijackings over three continents yesterday.

A Pole, aged 19, armed with a hand-grenade, forced a Polish airliner to land on a Danish Baltic Island, and will appear today before a magistrate.

In America, a Trans-Carib-bean DCB is back in service after being forced to make the “Cuba run.”

The Japanese, an apprentice cook, Sachio Inagaki, aged 24, was overpowered by the police at an air base in Western Japan when his attention was diverted by a pregnant woman passenger feigning labour pains. Armed with a toy pistol, Inagaki had forced his way into the cockpit of an All Nippon Airways Boeing 727 on take-off from Nagoya on an internal flight, and had ordered the pilot to land at the military air base at Hamamatsu, nearby. The airliner made an emer-

gency landing there, and Inagaki demanded a sniper’s rifle, 100 rounds of ammunition, and petrol. The police say that Inagaki had apparently planned an elaborate suicide attempt in which he would be shot to death in a gun battle with policemen or troops. His girl friend had left him, he had no friends, and wanted to die, but, unable to bring himself to commit suicide, he had decided to be shot instead.

Inagaki was grabbed when most of the 75 passengers had disembarked. The pregnant woman pretended to be in labour and, as he moved to allow her to leave the aircraft, detectives overpowered him.

In Denmark, where two aircraft seized by dissident Poles have been forced to

land, the authorities are facing today the delicate problem of whether to punish the hijackers and grant them refugee status, or meet Polish extradition demands. Yesterday, Kryzystof Kyrnski, aged 19, forced the pilot of a Polish Airlines Ilyushin 14 on a domestic flight from Danzig to Warsaw to change course and land on the Danish island of Bornholm.

The police in Orenne charged Kgrnski last night with disturbing a means of public transport, an offence which carries a maximum penalty' of six years in prison, and he will appear

before an examining magistrate today. A married couple and an engaged couple also left the aircraft, but the police say they have not been charged.

All five have asked for political asylum. The airliner, with its 14 other passengers, later returned to Poland.

A few weeks ago, another Pole, Zbigniev Ivanicki, aged 28, who was also armed with hand-grenades, forced the pilot of a Polish plane to fly to Denmark.

He said that he was a political refugee, but since the hijacking he has been in custody, charged with using threats of violence and endangering the lives of others. The Polish Government has demanded his extradition. The third airliner involved in a hijacking yesterday was seized while on a flight from Newark, New Jersey, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, with 154 people. It later flew back to Miami, Florida, from Havana to continue its flight.