http://www.mississauga.com/news/article/79203--hijacker-spent-decades-on-the-run
Aug 26, 2009
The world watched in horror on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 as two
passenger jets crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center
in New York. But, there was another story relating to a hijacked
aircraft that made headlines that infamous day.
Front page articles in the morning editions of major New York
newspapers as well as The Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper,
revealed details of the arrest of a respected and admired former New
York elementary school teacher, who had been leading a double life.
Patrick Dolan Critton had finally been captured nearly 30 years after
using a handgun and a grenade on Boxing Day 1971 to hijack a Canadian
passenger jet bound for Mississauga's Pearson International Airport,
from Thunder Bay.
However, news of the arrest quickly faded due to the notorious events of 9/11.
"This was the big story of the day until two planes killed 3,000 people,"
said veteran Toronto Star reporter Bob Mitchell, who self published
the book "In Plane Sight, which highlights Critton's story, including
the hijacking, the multiple decades on the run, the arrest and
eventual conviction. "I self published this book is because I
couldn't get any publisher interested in a book about a hijacker.
It's as if the topic is taboo."
Although working as a teacher by day in 1971, Critton was also a
leader of three independent underground militant cells linked to the
Black Liberation Army (BLA). They had been robbing banks and building
large arms and ammunition cache in safe houses and making bombs for
their impending war with America.
At the time of the hijacking, Critton was a fugitive in New York City
for a series of crimes, including bank robbery. He later fled to
Canada, leaving a wife and a young toddler behind in New York.
Critton, now 62 and living in Harlem, spent almost the entire
Christmas Day of 1971 on a bus. But a terrible winter storm forced
him to stay overnight in a Thunder Bay motel room. Feeling depressed,
Mitchell writes, Critton thought about turning back but then decided
to take another course of action. The next day Critton purchased a
first class ticket to Pearson Airport and used his handgun and a
grenade to hijack an Air Canada jet to Cuba.
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 book) is the untold story of Critton's incredible journey, a
voyage that took him eventually to Africa before returning to the
United States on Friday the 13th in May 1994," Mitchell said "His
odyssey is told through first-hand accounts, interviews, police and
court documents, transcripts, newspaper files, historical clippings
and Critton's own words and thoughts. "
Although "In Plane Sight" deals with a crime this is far more than
just a true crime book, Mitchell said.
"This is not so much a story of a hijacker or an historical account
of what life was like in the turbulent 1960s and 70s but a tale of
man, who overcame his violent and criminal past to become a member of
the society he once sought to dismantle," Mitchell said.
Mitchell, 56, a former Mississauga resident, also authored "The Class
Project How to kill a mother," the story of Mississauga's "Bathtub
girls," two teenaged sisters who killed their mother by drowning her
in the bathtub of the family home.
"In Plane Sight" is available at www.amazon.com for $24.95.
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