Frederick Hahneman

Frederick William Hahneman (July 5, 1922 – December 17, 1991) was a Honduras-born U.S. citizen convicted of hijacking Eastern Air Lines Flight 175 on May 5, 1972. The flight—scheduled from Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Miami, Florida, with a stop in Washington, D.C.—was hijacked by Hahneman. The hijacked plane landed twice in Washington, D.C., then once in New Orleans, where a change of planes was made due to a mechanical issue. The new plane was then flown into Honduran airspace, as demanded by Hahneman.

Hahneman parachuted from the plane over his native Honduras after extorting $303,000 from Eastern Air Lines. Evading an FBI and Honduran police manhunt and with a $25,000 bounty placed on him, Hahneman remained on the run for 28 days before finally surrendering to the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for aircraft hijacking, kidnapping, and extortion, and was paroled after serving 12 years. Hahneman's motives were never fully understood.