Captain John Testrake and a hijacker onboard TWA Flight 847 in Beirut in June 1985
23 January 2023
To hijack is to waylay a vehicle in order to steal it or its cargo. The word also has an extended sense meaning to take control of something and directing it where you want to go, as in hijacking a conversation. The word arises in American criminal slang of the early twentieth century, but exactly why it is called hijacking is unknown.
The hi- or high- may refer to the highway, as early hijackings were of cargo trucks, but that’s just a guess. The -jack element could refer to a metaphorical lifting or hoisting something, although the sense of the verb to jack meaning to steal appears later and seems to be a clipping of hijack rather than the source of that word.
The earliest uses of hijack that I have found come from Oklahoma in 1915–16, with the earliest referring to hijackings of trucks carrying liquor. Interestingly, from what I gather by reading these early newspaper accounts, since Oklahoma was a “dry” state where possession of liquor itself was illegal, stealing it was not actually a criminal offense, and police often didn’t bother to pursue such bandits.
The earliest use of the word that I have found is in the Tulsa Daily World in an article with a dateline of 31 December 1915 and published the following day:
OFFICERS KNOW THE FIELD “HI-JACKERS”
Special to the World.
SHAMROCK, Okla., Dec. 31.—It developed today that the authorities know the names of the seven men who are working as “hi-jackers” on the 18-mile prairie northeast of Shamrock, holding up liquor consignments and confiscating it for their own use and to sell.
And there is this story in the Tulsa Daily World of 26 January 1916 where a posse did in fact pursue and shoot at liquor-truck hijackers:
They explained their failure to stop when so ordered by those of the posse to their opinion that they were being “hi-jacked.” They declared they had absolutely no intention to participate in a holdup when they went to Sand Springs, and were quite surprised when the shooting began.
And this story from the same paper of 5 March 1916 about a man who made a lucrative business out of transporting workers to and from the Oklahoma oil fields uses the word without quotation marks, indicating that the term was already becoming part of the general vocabulary, at least in that part of the country:
He rises as do the Bohemians, before sunrise, and takes his place on the assembling corner where during a day is created business that sometimes amounts to $700 or $800. He takes no chances on stickups and hijackers who go on their beat after dark and put fear into the hearts of night travelers.
In the latter half of 1916 we start to see the word crop up outside of Oklahoma. From an article on criminal slang that appeared in Ohio’s Columbus Dispatch on 10 September 1916:
And just as characteristic are the names that the gentlemen who make faces at the law, have for each other. A paperhanger is an honest profession but over at the penitentiary he’s a forger. Sneak thief, the crooks call him a “healer.” A highway robber is a “highjacker,” and the familiar ones are, burglar, “prowler,” pickpocket, “dip”; police informer, “rat.”
The earliest application of the word I’ve found to waylaying an airplane is in an Associated Press report from 16 April 1959:
4 CUBANS HIJACK AEROPLANE
MIAMI, Fla. (AP)—Four gunmen—three of them former members of dictator Fulgencia Batista’s secret police—captured a Cuban airliner in flight today and forced the pilot to go 325 miles out of his way and land in Miami.The plane, carrying 17 American and Cuban passengers, landed at Miami International Airport. Police surrounded it immediately and took the hijackers into custody.
From the late 1950s through to the mid 1970s, aircraft hijackings were rampant, with many, like the example above, being flights between Cuba and the United States. In 1961, the variant term skyjack appeared to describe the practice. From the San Antonio Light of 9 August 1961:
Congress is proceeding with admirable if unaccustomed speed to make skyjacking a crime that doesn’t pay.
Legislation to make life imprisonment mandatory for pirating planes has passed the senate aviation subcommittee without dissenting vote and hearings are under way on a companion bill in the house.
The recent wave of skyjacking of U.S. airliners by sympathizers of Cuba’s Communist Castro regime has given impetus to this legislation, which has long been needed to protect passengers and crews in the air.
Use of skyjack has become far less common since the mid 1970s, paralleling a decrease in the number of aircraft hijackings.
Sources:
Associated Press. “4 Cubans Hijack Aeroplane.” Calgary Herald (Alberta), 16 April 1959, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
“A Bohemian King Now Drives Auto” (4 March 1916). Tulsa Daily World, 5 March 1916, 7. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Capture Bandits After Pistol Duel.” Tulsa Daily World (Oklahoma), 26 January 1916, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2022, s.v. hijack, v., hijack, n.
“Noah Webster of Pen Takes Dip into Crook Talk.” Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), 10 September 1916, 14. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Officers Know the Field ‘Hi-Jackers.’” Tulsa Daily World (Oklahoma), 1 January 1916, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. hijack, v., hijacker, n.
“Piracy Penalty.” San Antonio Light (Texas), 9 August 1961, 42. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Image credit: US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 1985. Wikipedia Commons. Public domain image.