The ex-fighter pilot, who in 1992 hijacked a jet over Vietnam to drop thousands of leaflets calling for the overthrow of the communist government, is on life support in a San Diego hospital.
Former fighter pilot Ly Tong hijacked a plane flying from Thailand to Vietnam in 1992 to distribute thousands of leaflets calling for the overthrow of the communist government. Above, Tong waves as he arrives at court in Bangkok in 2006.
But to many members of the younger generation, Tong is a relic of the past — if they think of him at all. He tried several times to escape, succeeding in 1980. On the loose, he would recall an 18-month adventure on foot, bicycling or riding buses through Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia — ultimately swimming across the Johore Strait to Singapore, where he strode into the U.S. Embassy to ask for asylum.In 1984, he resettled in Louisiana, later enrolling in a political science graduate program at the University of New Orleans.
He parachuted from an emergency exit into a swamp, where the Vietnamese government arrested him two hours later. No one aboard the aircraft was harmed. As punishment, he lost his pilot’s license, but later that year he offered a flight instructor $10,000 to depart Bangkok in a single-engine plane — again heading to Ho Chi Minh City to drop thousands more leaflets, demanding armed demonstrations against the communists.Tong was released and came back to California in 2006. Two years later, he rented a South Korean aircraft, intending to sprinkle leaflets over North Korea, but he was arrested before he took off.
He didn’t like that Tong used pepper spray to assault that singer, “but we cannot judge him. We are ordinary, while he is a hero.” Tong has three children but never married. Le remembers him as “always affectionate,” someone “who never forgot about his relatives, especially my sisters and I.”Tong’s health has gradually worsened, and he has been at San Diego’s Sharp Memorial Hospital since early March.
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