Aviation Security
Civil aviation security exists to prevent criminal activity on aircraft and in airports. Criminal activity includes acts such as hijacking (air piracy), damaging or destroying aircraft and nearby areas with bombs, and assaulting passengers and aviation employees. Today, aviation security is high on the list of priorities of air travelers, the Federal Government, and the international air community. In the earliest days of aviation, however, aviation security was only a minor concern.
The first recorded hijacking occurred in May 1930, when Peruvian revolutionaries seized a Pan American mail plane with the aim of dropping propaganda leaflets over Lima. No hijackings were then recorded until 1947. Between that year and 1958, 23 hijackings were reported, mostly committed by eastern Europeans seeking political asylum. The world's first fatal hijacking took place in July 1947 when three Romanians killed an aircrew member.
The first major act of criminal violence against a U.S. airliner occurred on November 1, 1955, when Jack Graham placed a bomb in luggage belonging to his mother and killed all 44 people on board a Denver-bound plane. Graham had hoped to cash in his mother's life insurance policy; instead, he was sentenced to death. In January 1960, a heavily insured suicide bomber killed all aboard a National Airlines plane, sparking demands for the use of baggage-inspection devices.
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