HONG KONG: Pilots & Pirates

In a Macao teahouse, Wong Yu, a babyfaced, 24-year-old farmer and a few of his friends decided to sell their rice paddies and take up piracy. They had $3,000 for expenses, and one of them, Mexican-born Chiu Tok, had learned to fly planes in Manila. Last week, Wong Yu confessed that they had committed the first recorded act of air piracy.

Their quarry was a Catalina flying boat of Cathay Pacific Airways which made a regular run between Portuguese Macao and British Hong Kong.

One sultry afternoon last month, the four bought tickets for Hong Kong. Wong sat in the rear of the plane. Chiu Tok chose a seat near the compartment where two pilots, Dale Cramer, an American, and K. S. McDuff, sat at the controls. The pirates looked hungrily at four of their fellow passengers. They were Chinese millionaires who would bring fat ransoms.

The Catalina skimmed above the calm waters and set its course for Hong Kong. Below, off Nine Islands, a scattered fleet of fishing junks spread their lugsails against the sky. Chiu Tok moved forward, ordered Senior Pilot Cramer to surrender the controls to him. One of the passengers rose to interfere. The pirates shot him. Co-Pilot McDuff grabbed an iron flag bar and swung on Chiu Tok. In a panic, the pirates fired wildly at the two pilots. Cramer slumped dead over the controls. As screaming passengers spilled into the aisle, the plane came around in a wide circle. Out of control, it plummeted down into the South China Sea.

Of the 23 who boarded the plane, the fishing junks found only one survivor—baby-faced Wong, who had managed to jump from a rear emergency exit. With a fractured leg, he was brought into a Macao hospital, where he confessed.

Since the Catalina flew the British flag, Wong Yu will be tried in Hong Kong. Since piracy laws don’t yet cover air piracy, he will probably be charged with simple murder.