A veteran of the Vietnam war, infamous Mormon Richard McCoy was a competent helicopter pilot with an education from Brigham Young University. Following the war, he fell upon hard times and in desperation decided to hijack a plane by holding it and it’s passengers to ransom with a hand grenade he had smuggled aboard. His demands were for $500,000, with a plan to escape via parachute with three other hostages as insurance.
Despite his plan succeeding, he was caught two days later and put on trial where he received a sentence of forty-five years in prison which he would not outlive. There is, however, speculation that a similar incident in the year previously was also carried out by Richard McCoy under the alias of D. B. Cooper.
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