Raimundo da Conceição

Background

By the end of the 1980s, Brazil faced high unemployment and inflation. Raimundo Nonato Alves da Conceição, from a poor family and recently jobless, decided to punish President José Sarney by crashing an airplane into the Planalto Palace. He bought a 32-caliber revolver and boarded VASP Flight 375; X-ray machines and metal detectors were not used at Confins Airport at the time.

Hijacking

About 20 minutes after takeoff from Belo Horizonte, with the plane in Rio de Janeiro airspace, Raimundo announced the hijacking. He shot flight attendant Ronaldo Dias when he tried to stop him, then fired several times at the cockpit door, broke it open, and shot extra crew member Gilberto Renhe, fracturing his leg. Without the hijacker noticing, pilot Fernando Murilo de Lima e Silva set the transponder to code 7500, indicating hijacking.

First Officer Salvador Evangelista was shot and killed while answering a radio call. Raimundo then demanded the plane be diverted to Brasília. He eventually abandoned his plan to crash into the Planalto Palace but prevented the pilot from landing at Brasília International Airport or Anápolis Air Force Base with nearly empty fuel tanks. Approaching Goiânia, the pilot performed two acrobatic maneuvers—a tonneau and a spin—witnessed by a Mirage III fighter; the second maneuver allowed a quick landing at Santa Genoveva Airport at 1:45 pm.

On the ground, negotiations continued for hours. Around 7:00 pm, as Raimundo descended the flight ladder using the pilot as a shield, he was shot three times by an elite Brazil Federal Police team. He died two days later; the coroner stated the cause was sickle-cell disease, unrelated to the gunshot wounds.

Did You Know?

• The aircraft, a Boeing 737-317, was originally delivered to Canadian airline CP Air in 1986.
• The plane later served with Morris Air and Southwest Airlines before being scrapped in 2013.
• The pilot who averted the tragedy, Fernando Murilo de Lima e Silva, received the Aeronautical Highlight trophy in October 2001.