TS Eliot may have written that “April is the cruelest month,” but he didn’t try to make a living operating helicopters. The opening weeks of this year were proof that January is no slouch either, its first weeks memorable as a nightmarish procession of helicopter hijackings, mishaps, disastrous crashes and, sadly, deaths.
• The infamy began January 3 when two gunmen hijacked a Eurocopter AStar owned by Puerto Rican operator Helicorp during what began as an apparently innocent charter flight. Angel Rivera Marcano and Jesus Rojas Tapia, later cited for armed aircraft piracy and carrying a weapon on an aircraft, chartered the helicopter from San Juan-based Helicorp, claiming they were construction engineers who needed to inspect a building site from the air. En route, the two pulled guns on the startled pilot and ordered him to fly to the Las Cucharas prison in the southern Puerto Rican city of Ponce. Tapia is the brother of convict Jose Rojas Tapia, who escaped via the helicopter along with four others–Orlando Valdes Cartagena, Jose Perez Rodriguez, Victor Gonzalez Diaz and Hector Marrero Diaz. All five were serving lengthy sentences for murder and were subsequently captured following a massive manhunt. (The jailbreak recalls memories of an equally ambitious escape from the Rio Piedras State Penitentiary in San Juan in 1991, when a helicopter landed in the courtyard of the prison and flew away with three prisoners serving time for drug trafficking.)
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