Hijacking of a Let L-410 to Weiden (Upper Palatinate)

The hijacking of a Let L-410 to Weiden (Upper Palatinate) occurred on 8 June 1972. On that day, a Slov-Air Let L-410A, which was to operate a flight from Mariánské Lázne to Lučenec with stopovers in Prague and Bratislava, was hijacked by a group of people who, under threat of violence, forced the first officer Dominik Chrobák to fly to West Germany. The captain was killed in the process. The aircraft eventually landed at Weiden/Opf. airfield.

Sequence of events

On that day the Let was used for a routine flight from Prague to Mariánské Lázne, which proceeded without any particular incidents. The aircraft took off from Mariánské Lázne Airport at around 16:00 for the return flight to Prague. Shortly after takeoff, when the aircraft was over the Bečov junction, two hijackers stormed into the cockpit, one of whom was carrying a handgun. The hijackers demanded to be flown to Germany and threatened to shoot the pilots otherwise. In a scuffle, the captain Ján Mičica was shot dead. The hijackers demanded that the aircraft immediately set course for Munich. At the same time, eight further hijackers attacked the remaining four passengers with bottles in order to prevent resistance from a possible air marshal on board.

The first officer told the hijackers that they did not have enough fuel to reach Munich and that he would land in the next larger town. Shortly after the hijackers were able to read the lettering “Glasfabrik” (glass factory) on an industrial building through a cabin window and spotted vehicles of Western make on the roads, the aircraft landed on the only 600 m long runway of the airfield in Weiden.

All ten hijackers (including three women, one with a small child) escaped and were later apprehended by the police.