Patrick Critton
Patrick Dolan Critton is a former teacher from Mount Vernon, New York who was arrested and convicted nearly three decades after an aircraft hijacking traveling within Ontario.[1] Critton, who was a passenger on the plane, allegedly ordered its crew to fly to Cuba.[2]
At the time of the incident, which occurred in 1971, Critton mistakenly thought he was a fugitive in New York City for a series of crimes, including bank robbery. He had fled to Canada, where he continued a life of crime.
On December 26, 1971, Critton boarded a plane in Thunder Bay, Ontario bound for Toronto. Armed with a grenade and a pistol, he demanded the plane to fly to Havana, Cuba. He released all passengers in Toronto on his way to Havana.
After arriving in Cuba, Critton served an 8-month prison sentence. Following his sentence, he first worked in the sugar cane industry. Two years later, he moved to Tanzania, where he became a teacher. He also married and had two children before returning to the United States in 1994, feeling safe from the time passed.
Critton remained a fugitive until 2001, when he was found by a detective through a Google search, which at that time produced a single hit with his name that revealed the location where he was teaching. The one hit was a March 2001 article describing his mentoring of black youth.
Critton was arrested on September 10, 2001.[3] Fingerprints on a ginger ale bottle found on the plane linked Critton to the hijacking. Prosecutors, in order to avoid prejudicing the jury, based on the views of the recent September 11 attacks, portrayed Critton to jurors not as a terrorist, but as a kidnapper and robber whose motivation was to gain the flight to Cuba.
Critton received a five-year prison sentence for the crimes.[4] He was released after 1 year and 10 months. He was released in June 2003.