A lone man tried to hijack an airliner to North Korea. The flight crew was determined to stop him.

[KOREAN CRIME FILES #21]

Behind the glitz and glamour seen in pop culture, Korea’s grimmest and most harrowing crime stories, some more well-known than others, continue to haunt society today. The Korea JoongAng Daily takes a deep dive into some of these stories, sharing a glimpse into the darker side of society as well as the most up-to-date known facts. — Ed.

The first grenade hit the aisle somewhere over Gangwon, blowing a hole in the floor 30 minutes into a routine flight from Yangyang County, Gangwon, to Seoul. The second blew open the cockpit door.

Korean Air Flight F27 had departed Sokcho Airport in Yangyang County on the morning of Jan. 23, 1971, carrying 60 passengers on a short run to the capital — the kind of flight that feels barely worth settling into your seat for. Passengers would have been reading newspapers, looking out at the winter landscape below, paying little attention to the man in the aisle until it was too late.

Kim Sang-tae — the man who had thrown both homemade grenades — stormed into the cockpit with a third in his hand and ordered Captain Lee Gang-heun, co-pilot Park Wan-gyu and trainee pilot Jeon Myeong-se to turn the nose north. Then Kim turned to face the cabin.

"Stay where you are," he said. "I'll give you a view of Pyongyang that money can't buy."

The threat was not an empty one. Two years earlier, a North Korean agent had hijacked a Korean Air NAMC YS-11 and diverted it to Wonsan, Kangwon Province, in North Korea.

Of the 50 people aboard, 39 were eventually returned to the South after more than two months — but 11, including the two pilots, never came home. North Korea has maintained to this day that they chose to stay of their own free will. For everyone aboard Flight F27, the precedent was not reassuring.

Passengers screamed as the wind tore through the hole the first grenade had blasted in the cabin floor. Air marshal Choi Cheon-il, traveling on board, assessed the situation. Flight attendant Choi Seok-ja understood immediately what she had to do: keep the cabin as calm as possible and wait for an opportunity.

The last runway

Back in the cockpit, Kim made his intentions clear. "I came here prepared to die," he told the crew. "Turn the nose north."

Captain Lee was already thinking.

He appeared to comply, telling Kim to calm down and promising to turn the aircraft as instructed. He turned east instead, back toward Sokcho, and transmitted over the radio: "We have a hijacker aboard" — a message that reached the control tower at Sokcho Airport.

Flying north and trusting that the North Korean government would return everyone safely was not a gamble Lee was willing to take. He needed a plan. Ganseong Airfield in Goseong County was the last runway before the inter-Korean border. If he could put the aircraft down there and convince Kim they had already crossed into North Korean territory, it might be enough.

"We are almost in North Korea," Lee told him as the aircraft began its descent.

They were close. But Kim had grown up in Goseong County. He knew the land below. The moment that Hwajinpo, a large and distinctive lagoon separated from the sea by a spit of sand, came into view, he knew exactly where he was.

"You bastard!" Kim screamed, according to some sources. "This is Hwajinpo — why are you landing here? I'll throw this into the cockpit!"

Lee had no choice but to turn north. The border was now minutes away, and the captain was out of runways.

Inside the cabin, air marshal Choi Cheon-il had been watching Kim throughout, pistol ready, waiting. The difficulty was the grenade. One wrong move and Kim would detonate it — and a device capable of blowing a hole in a cabin floor and forcing open a reinforced cockpit door was not something anyone wanted to trigger at close range. Choi bided his time.

Flight attendant Choi Seok-ja continued moving through the cabin, speaking quietly, doing whatever she could to keep passengers from losing control.

Five minutes from the border

The South Korean Air Force dispatched two fighter jets as Flight F27 neared the inter-Korean border. They fired warning shots across the aircraft's path. Kim, bewildered, demanded to know who they were.

Lee told him they were North Korean. They had come to welcome the plane.

What followed was one of the most remarkable acts of nerve in the entire incident. Choi Seok-ja picked up the cabin intercom.

"We have entered North Korean airspace. We have no choice but to go to North Korea — please tear up all your identification documents."

The announcement was designed to sell Lee's deception — to make Kim believe the plan had worked. But she was also protecting everyone on board. If the aircraft did land in the North, the less personal information the authorities could obtain, the better. 

In the cabin, passengers broke down. Many genuinely believed they were not coming back.

The deception was working. Kim turned to the window to verify that the jets were indeed North Korean.

That is when Choi Cheon-il raised his pistol and fired. The bullet struck Kim in the forehead. He died instantly.

The grenade fell from his hand to the cockpit floor, safety pin removed.

Trainee pilot Jeon threw himself onto it.

The blast tore through him. The cockpit was intact. The aircraft held. Jeon had absorbed the full force of the explosion and was barely alive. Lee and Park now had to land a damaged aircraft, past the last designated airfield, with a dying crewmate on the floor and 60 terrified passengers behind them, less than 10 minutes from the border.

Lee chose Chodo-ri beach in Goseong County — flat ground, clear of obstacles, clear of people. He and Park brought the aircraft down. It hurtled across the sand and skidded to a halt. They were 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from the border. Five more minutes in the air, and they would have crossed it.

Seventeen people were injured on landing. Choi Seok-ja directed the evacuation, refusing to leave until every passenger was safely off the aircraft. A rescue helicopter came for Jeon and flew him toward a nearby hospital. He did not survive the journey. Those on board recalled his last words: "Passengers are in danger! There are bombs!"

What they left behind

Captain Lee spent approximately a month in the hospital. The blasts had damaged his left retina — his vision in that eye fell from 1.2 to 0.3. The injury threatened his career but not his determination.

He recovered, returned to the cockpit and reportedly continued to fly until retirement, though the exact year is not recorded. Co-pilot Park, who had injured his left hand in the initial attack when Kim gained entrance to the cockpit, also returned to flying after treatment.

Choi Seok-ja was awarded a round-the-world trip by the president of Korean Air. She later emigrated to the United States, where she has lived ever since. In 2024, she returned to Korea for a screening of “Hijack 1971,” the film adaptation of the events of that day. Speaking to KBS during her visit, she described what it had felt like in the moment. "Back then, it was a question of whether we'd live or die," she said. "We thought, 'If he takes us to North Korea, we're all dead.'" 

Jeon is buried at Seoul National Cemetery in southern Seoul. His gravestone records that he sacrificed his life to save the passengers of Flight F27. In 2024, an alumnus of Duksoo High School published an online tribute, describing him as a "true hero who gave up his life for Korea's safety and prosperity."

Kim’s motive was never conclusively established. Investigators found that his older brother had crossed into North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War, raising speculation that Kim had been acting on orders from Pyongyang — or had sought to defect of his own accord. But Kim died before a proper investigation was possible, and no concrete evidence was found to support either theory.

Why he boarded Flight F27 on the morning of Jan. 23, 1971, and what he believed he would find on the other side of the border have never been answered.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [[email protected]]