There have been 13 hijackings of Chinese airliners to Taiwan since April 1993, but this one was different.
Yesterday an Air China pilot hijacked his own passenger plane to Taiwan, not for political or ideological reasons, but apparently because he was unhappy with working conditions. Last night he was being held in custody in the Taiwan capital, Taipei, and he faces a long sentence for air piracy, and possible execution when he is returned to China.
The plane, a Boeing 737, was carrying 95 passengers, including 20 foreigners, and nine crew on a regular flight from Beijing to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in south-west China. After seven hours on the ground in Taipei, during which the passengers and remaining crew were refused permission to leave, the plane returned to China last night without Capt Yuan Bin and his wife, Xu Mei, who had been a passenger and had evidently been part of the plot.
Taiwan cleared the plane to return to China after Beijing agreed that it would do so via Hong Kong to comply with Taipei's ban on direct air crossings of the Taiwan Strait. China and Taiwan have had no direct air links since nationalist forces fled to the island when the communist forces took over China in 1949.
Following a two-hour stop in Xiamen, the plane continued on to its original destination of Kunming. It was the first civilian Chinese aircraft to be hijacked by its own captain. The 29-year-old pilot told Taipei authorities he was unhappy with poor pay and housing conditions at China's national flag-carrier.
"I feel heavy-hearted but have no regrets", he told reporters as he was taken to detention after interrogation. The hijacking to protest at working conditions made little sense. Capt Yuan could have travelled abroad with little difficulty, either as a pilot or privately, as ordinary Chinese are free to leave the country in today's more relaxed atmosphere. Also he would have known that China and Taiwan have an informal agreement to return hijackers as air pirates, for which the punishment in China is execution, and to return the hijacked aircraft.
Taipei has repatriated several hijackers after they had served long prison terms. The hijack of flight number CA905 caused a brief military alert. Taiwan's air force scrambled two US-made F5Es and two locally-made IDF fighter jets after its radar picked up the Boeing 737 as it veered off course and crossed the narrow Taiwan Strait into Taiwan air space. The military aircraft escorted the airliner to Taipei airport.
Junior pilots earn some 5,000 yuan (£400) a month and senior pilots 15,000 yuan. Air crews are given a daily living allowance of $30 while overseas. Air China has 1,000 pilots working on 44 international and 64 domestic routes.
Taiwan once offered gold bars and cash rewards to mainland military pilots who defected to Taiwan in their Soviet-made MiGs and other warplanes.
China's cyber-police have partially blocked a new official Chinese human rights website after it was defaced by a computer hacker, who labelled it "bullshit propaganda". The new website of the government-backed Chinese Society for Human Rights (www.humanrights-china.org) had been replaced on Monday by a hacked version.