On 30 September 1978, a Finnish man hijacked a flight. His demands were four bottles of whisky, a chauffeured limousine and 24 hours alone with his wife

A major plane hijack scare involving a Flydubai flight travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv ended with the aircraft being diverted to Saudi Arabia earlier today following an altercation between two pilots inside the cockpit. Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz later described the incident as an "attempted jihadist terrorist attack". The incident has once again put the spotlight on plane hijackings, including one incident that happened exactly 48 years ago on this day. In the 1978 Finnair Flight 405 incident, a Finnish man hijacked a plane and made some unusual demands. It was the first ever hijacking incident of Finland.

The incident took place on September 30, 1978, when Aarno Lamminparras, an unemployed home-building contractor, hijacked Finnair Flight 405 carrying 44 passengers and five crew members. The 37-year-old, who had declared bankruptcy before the incident, managed to board the aircraft with a loaded pistol because Finnish airports at the time did not conduct security checks for domestic flights.

17 hours, 4,500-km journey, and $200,000 ransom

While en route to Helsinki, Lamminparras entered the cockpit and held the pilot at gunpoint. He agreed to release 34 passengers after the aircraft reached Helsinki but then forced the pilot to fly back to Oulu. The aircraft landed in Oulu for refuelling, where a US$168,000 ransom payment from Finnair was also loaded onto the plane.


Lamminparras then forced the aircraft to fly back to Helsinki, where he demanded $38,000 from Finland's largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat. He released the remaining 11 passengers after receiving about $18,000 from the newspaper. But the hijacking drama was far from over.

Lamminparras then forced the aircraft to fly to Amsterdam. After being refuelled, the plane returned to Helsinki, where he received the remainder of the newspaper's ransom payment.

The plane was then flown back to Oulu. Among his final demands were four bottles of whisky, a chauffeur-driven limousine and a 24-hour stay at home with his wife, according to archival material published by the Europeana Foundation. He released the final three hostages, all of them crew members, after police agreed to his demands.

After holding the plane for two days, Lamminparras surrendered peacefully on October 2, 1978. Initially, law enforcement authorities allowed him to go free as part of the deal. However, his freedom was short-lived. He was arrested at his home the following day.

Lamminparras was later sentenced to seven years in prison in 1979.