Pan Am Flight 281 was a regularly scheduled

Pan American World Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

flight to

San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan (, , ; Spanish for "Saint John") is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the jur ...

. It was hijacked on November 24, 1968, by four men from

JFK International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the New ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Havana, Cuba Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

. U.S. jet fighter aircraft followed the plane until it reached Cuban

airspace Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is the ...

. Two of the hijackers were apprehended in the 1970s. Jose Rafael Rios Cruz was arrested in 1975; Miguel Castro was captured in 1976. Both pleaded guilty; Cruz was sentenced to 15 years in prison and Castro to 12. A third hijacker, Luis Armando Peña Soltren, lived as a fugitive in Cuba. In October 2009, he voluntarily returned to the United States and surrendered to federal authorities. He pleaded guilty to the hijacking on March 18, 2010. On January 4, 2011 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, without the possibility of parole. Alejandro Figueroa, a woman charged as a co-conspirator in the case, was acquitted in 1969.

References

Aircraft hijackings in the United States 281 Cuba–United States relations 1968 in New York City Aircraft hijackings Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1968 1968 in Cuba November 1968 events in North America Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 707 {{aviation-accident-stub