Hijacking

Hijacking is the offense of unlawfully seizing control of a vehicle in transit, most commonly an aircraft, but also a ship, train or road vehicle, typically through force, the threat of force, or another form of intimidation directed at the crew or passengers, in order to control its course, hold its occupants, or use it to further some further demand. Aircraft hijacking, often called air piracy, is the most heavily regulated form, addressed by a dedicated body of international aviation-security treaties adopted from the mid-twentieth century onward in response to a wave of hijackings, requiring signatory states to criminalize the offense and to either prosecute or extradite an offender found within their territory regardless of where the hijacking itself occurred. Maritime hijacking, the unlawful seizure of a ship and its cargo or crew, overlaps closely with the separate offense of piracy where it occurs on the high seas, though hijacking as a term also covers the unlawful seizure of a vessel within a state's own territorial waters, a circumstance the international definition of piracy does not reach. Because hijacking places passengers or crew directly at risk for the duration of the incident, it has, like hostage taking, driven the development of specialized law-enforcement and military response units and of the physical and procedural security measures now standard in commercial aviation.