Exception to the Rule

Because a single shot through the highly pressurized skin of a jetliner could cause a plane to explode in flight, pilots are under orders to let skyjackers have their way. In 61 hijackings so far this year, pilots have dutifully delivered the skyjackers to their desired destinations. Last week a Chilean pilot decided to revise the rules.

Shortly after Chilean Airlines flight 87 took off from Santiago on a routine flight to Puerto Montt with 56 passengers, two young men ordered Captain Leonidas Medina at gunpoint to fly north to Havana. During a refueling stop, the twin-jet Caravelle's port engine failed, and the hijackers ordered the six-man crew aboard another plane. Once in the air again, Captain Medina decided he had had enough. Catching the hijackers off guard, he and his copilot wrestled the pistol away from them and locked them in the toilets. Then Medina flew back to Santiago, where police arrested Pedro Varas Flores, 16, and Patricio Dagach Reic, 15, on a charge of armed assault.

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