When two hijackers out for ransom and political concessions take over a flight with 43 passengers, the co-pilots and scant crew attempt to outwit their attackers and maintain calm at cruising altitude above Latin America for more than 24 hours. Can the pillbox hat-wearing, cape-draped, terribly nervous flight attendants save the day — and the lives of all their passengers?
Directed by C.S. Prince and Pablo González (The Great Heist), the character-driven, retro-infused series The Hijacking of Flight 601 (Secuestro del Vuelo 601) was inspired by one of the longest aerial hijackings in Latin American history, which took place in May of 1973. It stars Mónica Lopera, Christian Tappan, and Enrique Carriazo.
Check it out below at the top of this article.
Christian Tappan, Johan Rivera, and Valentin Villafañe in The Hijacking of Flight 601
What starts as a routine flight for those aboard Aerobolivar Flight 601 turns into a days-long nightmare when two armed men hijack the flight for ransom and political demands. Seasoned flight attendant Edie (Lopera) puts her job in jeopardy when she misses the flight; Marisol (Antonini), the airline’s new flight attendant, battles her nerves long before the flight devolves into chaos; and the cocky pilot, Commander Wilches (Tappan), is taken down a peg when the gun-toting hijackers, Borja (Villafañe) and El Toro (Devetac), storm the cockpit. And no one’s going anywhere unless their demands are met: one, that the Colombian government releases dozens of political prisoners, and two, they pay the hijackers $200,000 in cold hard cash. But as the plane heads toward Cuba — where Borja ordered the pilots go — the stakes get dangerously higher when the government refuses to grant the hijackers’ conditions.
Yes. The series is based on the May 30, 1973, hijacking of SAM Colombia Flight HK-1274. Two Paraguayan soccer players — Francisco Solano López and Eusebio Borja, forwards who’d previously played for Ecuador — held the plane and its more than 80 passengers at gunpoint for a ransom of $200,000, and demanded that the Colombian government release dozens of guerrillas from prison.
According to news reports at the time, the hijacking was not only the longest-lasting in Latin American history, but also the longest in distance. Having diverted several times in a number of different countries, the plane was hijacked for nearly three days, wherein it traversed more than 10,000 miles.
Like the one in the series, the real flight departed from Bogotá, Colombia. It then made scheduled stops elsewhere in the country: in Cali and then Pereira, where the masked gunmen — later referred to as air pirates by the press — got on. When the two men later took control of the plane, they allegedly demanded the pilot divert the flight to Cuba but were refused.
“We thought it was a joke,” hostage Luis Reátegui — who boarded with several fellow competitive cyclists, like those depicted in the series — told NPR’s Radio Ambulante in 2021. “But when they got hold of the flight attendant, they grabbed her by the hair and talked to her harshly and everything. That scared us all very much. All of us in the plane!”
During its roughly 60-hour tour, the plane made multiple crew changes to swap out pilots and flight attendants, and the hijackers released passengers across several stops. The plane reportedly landed in Medellín, Colombia; Guayaquil, Ecuador; Lima, Peru; Asuncíon, Paraguay; Resistencia, Mendoza, and Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Oranjestad, Aruba. All those held captive were let go or managed to flee by the time the plane landed one last time in Argentina, where Solano López was arrested. Borja, alleged to have jumped out of the plane during a brief stop in Resistencia, has never been found.
As for the hijackers’ demands, they were eventually given $50,000 in ransom money from SAM after their proposed higher amounts were vetoed by both the airliner and the Colombian government — despite the gunmen’s many threats, including that they’d blow up the plane. “We will not negotiate with seditionists or outlaws,” Colombian president Misael Pastrana Borrero said at the time.
The series primarily takes place aboard Flight 601 after it departs Bogotá, Colombia.
The series was filmed in Bogotá and Cali, Colombia.
