The Great Plane Robbery

The conspirators handled it like baddies in a Buster Keaton film. One of them showed up at the Pusan airport with overweight baggage, left behind a suitcase containing an incriminating note in English ("Turn your nose north; your life will be spared"). Another dashed off hysterically at plane time, held up departure long enough to fire off a telegram implicating his brother. But once in the air, the conspirators were professional enough. As the Korean National Airlines plane neared Seoul, they held U.S. civilian pilot, Willis Hobbs, at pistol point. Instead of touching down at Seoul, the twin-engined DC-3 flew by the airport, headed north toward the demilitarized zone, 25 miles away, and crossed over into North Korea. Said an Eighth Army spokesman later: "There was no reason to intercept a known friendly aircraft, and by the time it was nearing the demilitarized zone line it was too late."

Significantly, no North Korean planes intercepted Hobbs's hijacked DC-3 either. The plane obviously was expected, and after it landed at Sunan airport, 20 miles north of Pyongyang, North Korean officials made only token efforts to imply defection. With Hobbs were his copilot, U.S. Air Force Lieut. Colonel Howard McClellan (logging flying hours with Air Force permission), a West German businessman and his wife, and 30 Koreans, including the chief information officer of the Korean air force, an energetic, Communist-investigating member of the Korean National Assembly, and, police at Pusan theorized, some half-dozen North Korean agents.

Chief conspirator seemed to have been Hyung Kim, a 35-year-old tailor who before leaving closed his store and sent a mimeographed letter to all his customers saying he was not coming back. Police found an empty pistol holster in his home and an air navigation chart. With him went his pretty 21-year-old wife (or mistress). Three of the conspirators had fought for North Korea during the war, had been captured, "renounced Communism," then enlisted in the South Korean army. They had all been in touch, said the police, with one Kang, "a North Korean agent with rank equivalent to a Deputy Premier."

What the North Koreans were up to soon became clear. The U.N.'s armistice negotiations chief. Major General Olaf Keyster, demanded and got a Panmunjom session, received an answer to demands for return of the plane and passengers that was understandable as a ransom note: difficulties would be smoothed over if South Korea would recognize North Korea officially (which it has always refused to do) by entering into direct negotiations for the missing DC-3. As huge mobs of outraged Seoul citizens yelled for action, the answer came from explosive South Korean President Syngman Rhee: "No!" By early this week. Rhee had ordered 50.000 ROK soldiers on massive maneuvers. There was no word on the fate of the plane's passengers.

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