According to some “official” sources the first air hijacking attempt on American soil happened on July 31, 1961 when pipeline worker Bruce Britt, Sr., boarded and attempted to commandeer a Pacific Airlines flight at the Chico Municipal Airport, in Chico, California, intending to return to his home in Smackover, Arkansas. The hijacking attempt failed, but Britt did shoot two airline employees.
But this reporter has uncovered an even earlier attempt at an airline hijacking..and it took place in Ohio and ended with tragic results. The year was 1954, 62 years ago this week on July the 6th when a large framed 15-year-old boy, wearing a leather coast denim jeans boarded an American Airlines plane at Cleveland Hopkins airport, waving a pistol and demanded that the pilot fly the plane to Mexico. The pilot, however, reached into high flight bag and withdrew a .38 caliber handgun and shot the young teen twice, once in the hip and once in the chest. He died about an hour later at the hospital. There were 53 passengers on board the DC-6, and they were largely unaware of what had happened until the ambulance took the boy’s body out on a stretcher. That young man was identified as Ray Kuchenmeister, a 280 pound, six-foot tall teen who his mother said was bitter because he was too big to be considered a boy and too young to be considered a man. His 12-year-old brother, Donald, who was outside the plane when the shooting happened said he and his brother had run away from their run down old home in suburban Parma and just wanted to go out West and “get work as cowboys”. The pilot, Captain William Bonnell said later, “What was I supposed to do? I had a maniac on the plane with a gun.” The gun that the young man brandished however was later revealed to be broken and empty. The boy’s mother said it was an old broken gun that been around the house for years and she thought it had been thrown out
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Cool
Sent from my iPhone, dave.
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Captain Bonnell was my grandfather. You left quite a few details out of this story. If you’d like to know more, I’d be happy to tell you the rest.
Jon, By all means, I would love to hear more. My source were some newspaper articles. I’m sure you have a more detailed account of what took place. We’d like to know what those were.
i really would like to hear the story
Jerome, please let me know the details that you have.
Raymond had been in my fifth grade class at North Eaton School, a country school on Route 82. He was much larger than anyone else in the class although he was the same age as the rest of us. He appeared to have very few family resources to care for him. At that time community resources were few to none to help neglected children with limited abilities and means, especially in rural areas. Our compassionate teacher, Dan Dieterich, made singular efforts to help him and to privately educate the class to be more caring. It was a painful situation, and his effort in 1954 to escape to a more welcoming cowboy environment reflects both the social failures of the time and the popularity of western fantasies in entertainment. I remember Raymond every time I hear of a school shooting. The gun he had was variously reported as a toy or empty and broken. Sixty-eight years later, helpful rescues for socially isolated children are still too few, but affluence and greed have made access to weapons of war all too easy.
Thanks for the information. Much appreciated.