CanJet Flight 918
CanJet Flight 918 (CJA 918, C6 918) was a flight that was on 19 April 2009 to have taken off from Sangster International Airport (MBJ), Montego Bay, Jamaica, bound for Halifax Stanfield International Airport (YHZ), Halifax, Canada, but was instead seized before takeoff for hours by an armed, lone hijacker. This was likely the fourth hijacking on Jamaican soil, and the second time a Canadian airliner has been hijacked. The likely second hijacking from Jamaica occurred 21 March 1972 when a Jamaica Air Taxi charter Cessna owned by Rudy Mantel and piloted by Marsh Greene was hijacked from Montego Bay Sangster International Airport to Manzanillo Cuba by two U.S. citizens. The first hijacking may have been a BWIA 727 (BW 400) Sunjet on May 1, 1970. According to Mr. Wesley Chang, who was on the flight, instead of flying to Miami, the aircraft was forced to go to Havana, Cuba where the men held the 63 passengers, including the crew, hostage for approximately seven hours while demanding that the plane be refueled and flown to Algiers for a meeting with American Author Eldridge Cleaver, a Black Panther who was living there in exile. The likely third hijacking was a thwarted attempt on 3 January 1974, aboard an Air Jamaica flight at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston.
C-FTCZ, the aircraft involved in the incident | |
Hijacking | |
---|---|
Date | 19 April 2009 |
Summary | Attempted hijacking |
Site | Sangster International Airport, Montego Bay, Jamaica 18.4999°N 77.9164°W |
Aircraft | |
Aircraft type | Boeing 737-8AS |
Operator | CanJet |
Registration | C-FTCZ |
Flight origin | Sangster International Airport, Montego Bay, Jamaica |
Destination | Halifax Stanfield International Airport, Halifax, Canada |
Passengers | 174 |
Crew | 8 |
Fatalities | 0 |
Survivors | 182 |