TOKYO -- A knife-wielding hijacker forced his way into the cockpit of a Japanese jumbo jet Friday, stabbed the pilot to death and then briefly flew the plane carrying more than 500 people before he was overpowered, according to officials and news reports.
No one else was injured aboard the All Nippon Airways Boeing 747, flying from Tokyo to the northern city of Sapporo, Transportation Ministry officials said. The plane returned to the capital about an hour after taking off.Two minutes after takeoff, the hijacker, Yuji Nishizawa, pulled out an 8-inch knife and pressed it to a flight attendant's back, forcing her to take him into the cockpit, officials said. The 28-year-old unemployed man, a fan of computer flight-simulation games, reportedly just wanted to fly a real plane.
Nishizawa forced the co-pilot out and ordered the pilot to steer toward the U.S. military's Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo, media reports said. When the pilot refused, the hijacker stabbed him in the neck, seized the controls and tried to steer there himself, news reports said.
After a sudden drop in altitude, the co-pilot and another man burst into the cockpit and pounced on the hijacker, tying him up with neckties.
Nishizawa was arrested after the plane landed, said Norio Chichi, deputy police chief at Haneda Airport. The government tightened security at airports across Japan.
The pilot, Naoyuki Nagashima, 51, was pronounced dead by a doctor on board shortly after Flight 61 landed, Transportation Ministry official Satoshi Iwamura said.
Chichi said Nagashima suffered stab wounds in the neck and shoulder. The pilot bled to death, said ministry official Fumihiko Oinuma. The death was the first ever for a passenger or crew member in Japan's 20 airplane hijackings since 1970, Oinuma said.
Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, speaking in Parliament, said he sent his condolences to the pilot's family.
Passenger accounts depicted a flight thrown into quiet fear when the hijacker, hair askew and dirty white gloves on his hands, pulled out a knife and pressed it to the back of a female flight attendant.
"Take me to the cockpit," Chichi quoted the hijacker as saying.
Passengers said they hunkered down.
"I was afraid to look at his face because he might say 'What are you looking at?' and take a stab at me," said a 61-year-old passenger, who only identified himself by his last name, Okawa.
Okawa and another passenger, Yasuhiro Fukuda, a 42-year-old musician, said the plane suddenly lost altitude when the hijacker -- still holding the flight attendant -- burst into the cockpit.
"I've never seen the ground so close before; I really thought this was it," Fukuda said.
It was not clear who took control of the plane after the cockpit fight. TBS television reported that the co-pilot landed the plane, but the Kyodo News agency reported that another pilot who happened to be on board took the controls.
Chichi said the hijacker was very agitated during questioning and was difficult to understand. Fuji TV reported he suffered from depression.
News reports said he wanted to fly under Tokyo's majestic Rainbow Bridge.
Flight 61 reported the hijacking shortly after takeoff from Haneda airport in Tokyo.