One of the most famous and widely covered stories of all time has to be the story of D.B. Cooper, the man who hijacked the plane in the 1970s and then parachuted out of it with $200,000 in stolen cash, never to be seen again. But what if I told you that there's a very similar story from the Philippines that's also extremely interesting.

It's just for some reason much, much less well known. Well, that's exactly the story that I'm covering this week. And I'll say this right now, I was really surprised when I saw just a small handful of YouTube videos have ever covered this before, because it's an extremely detailed, firsthand account. And let me just say this. It is a wild ride.

So without further ado, settle down. Make yourself comfortable. Grab yourself a snack. Welcome back, guys. My name is Andy Chang, and this is Hidden Stories.

On the afternoon of May 25th, 2000, at around 2 p.m., Philippines Airline Flight 812 departed from the Davao International Airport in Davao City, Philippines, on its way to the capital city of Manila. Now, this was supposed to be a very routine and short flight lasting around 90 minutes, but around an hour and 15 minutes into the trip, just 15 minutes before the plane was scheduled to arrive in Manila, the passenger sitting in seat 28 suddenly stood up to the confusion of the people around him.

He had put on a blue ski mask as well as swimming goggles over his eyes, and this confusion immediately transformed in the sheer terror when people saw the man holding both a gun and a grenade in his hands as he began to make his way to the forward galley at the front of the plane, which was the small current area that led to the pilots cockpit.

At that very moment, the two people in the forward galley where a flight attendant named Margaret Bueno and a flight attendant trainer named EDA Bernasconi. Extreme Glee. Ironically, Ito was literally right in the middle of explaining to Margaret what to do when the purely hypothetical situation of a plane hijacking, when the masked man suddenly ripped open the curtain into their small enclosure to the two women's sheer shock and bewilderment.

He immediately moved to the flight attendant Margaret site and pointed his gun at her, telling them that this was a holdup. And when the man forced Margaret to stand up and begin pushing her towards the cockpit doors, limiting access inside so that he could talk to the plane's pilots, the trainer Ito, realizing that he wasn't paying any attention to her, instantly leapt up and started running.

In that moment, faced with a real life armed hijacker for the very first time, all the training that she had so calmly relayed to Margaret just a few minutes earlier completely went out the window. The only thing she had on her mind was to find the other flight attendant trainer that she'd come with a man named Francis Cab.

You see, they've both been tasked with boarding this flight to perform a routine competency check on the flight attendants. But since Francis was more senior than her, he had been assigned to be the head of the cabin crew. And since Francis was a lot more experienced than her either, who was panicking? Hope that he would know what to do and how to save them all.

But when he finally found Francis at the back of the plane and quickly told him about the hijacker and what had happened to her horror, he just froze for a couple of seconds. Francis was so struck with terror and disbelief that his brain almost just refused to process what was happening. This was something that was so impossibly rare, something that was every flight attendant's worst nightmare and that what was happening to him on his plane.

And he just couldn't believe it. For this couple terrifying seconds, he was completely unresponsive. It was almost like he had completely lost it. But it was immense relief. Despite his palpable fear, Francis seemed to realize that he was responsive, both for the plane and its passengers. So he quickly pulled himself together. He went in, gathered all the crew members who were still in the back areas of the plane and informed them about the situation.

He told them not to panic and instructed them to help watch over the passengers while he went to try to help out with the hijacker in the front. Although Francis probably didn't feel brave at all as the leader of all the crew members, he knew that he had to look for them. So he tried his best, and with a deep breath he began to make his way to the front of the plane.

When Francis got to the cockpit, the very first thing he saw was the hijacker pointing a gun at a guy named Captain Butch Generoso, who, like Francis, had also been on the flight as a trainer but had been doing a competency check on the plane's pilot instead of the flight attendants. The plane's pilot himself was also there, as well as his copilot.

But the very moment the hijackers saw Francis, he was startled and immediately shifted his gun onto him, instead warning him as well as everyone else there in Filipino, that if they tried anything, quote, we will all die. The instant Francis saw the barrel of the gun staring straight at his forehead, every little bit of coughing. It's a bravery that he had managed to muster up.

Completely disintegrated again, just like earlier. He became so unimaginably frozen with fear that he could no longer think, much less move to actually do anything. Although he couldn't see the hijackers actual face, he could see his cold sore eyes through his swimming goggles and knew that he was 100% serious with his threat. And in that moment, images of Francis, his three children, his parents, his brother and his two sisters suddenly appeared in his mind, followed by an immense feeling of sadness that they would all be left without.

But something in Francis's mind had been quietly nagging at him ever since he had arrived to the cockpit, and he finally realized what it was. If the hijackers only goal had been to just kill them all, he would have done so already. But so far he hadn't actually hurt anyone yet. As such, Francis realized that there had to be something this guy was after, something he had to want to risk everything and do something so insane as hijacking a plane.

And as Francis also remembered, detecting a familiar, unique accent when the hijacker had spoken very similar to the accent his supportive mother used, he decided to take a risk as all of these sudden thoughts snuffed him out of his mentally and physically frozen state. Francis managed to get a few words out to the hijacker in the sub one language telling him, You're my brother.

Don't let anything bad happen to our flight. Don't hurt anyone. Tell me your problem and I will help you. To Francis's immense relief, his gut instinct happened right. After a short pause, the hijacker replied back in Fluency Bueno and told him that he needed money. Francis quickly assured him that if that was his problem, he would help him.

He reached into his pocket, plus his wallet, and took out all of the cash bills from inside. He told the hijacker that although this was all supposed to be for his children's tuition fees, he was giving it to him instead. And then to try to further please the hijacker and convince them that he was truly trying to help him.

Francis, one of the plane's intercom and announced all the passengers on board that someone was in desperate need of money. He cleverly didn't mention anything about a hijacker, since most of the passengers were still unaware that anything was wrong. And that would just cause widespread, immediate panic. Instead, he simply asked for, quote unquote, voluntary contributions from anyone who's willing to donate something.

And as the flight attendants went around to collect these contributions, since there were a total of 278 passengers with the passengers who actually knew what was going on, donating everything they could, it was actually amounting to a solid amount of money for the hijacker. But as this collections process was going on back in the cockpit, the man was still not satisfied.

For some unspecified reason, he demanded that the pilots fly the plane back to Davao City, where it had taken off from. But what he was told that since this was a sort of flight that was already supposed to be over, there simply just wasn't enough fuel left to make that trip. He became furious and went into a rage, threatening everyone even more with his gun and his grenade as Francis was with the hijacker in the cockpit while the money was being collected.

He noticed two more things about him. The first thing was that he seemed extremely unstable and his emotions were just fluctuating everywhere. At times, he would flail out in this intense, raw anger. And at other times, Francis would see him crying through his goggles. The second thing was, this man was very clearly drunk. When Francis was close to him, he could easily smell the strong set of alcohol just reeking from his body.

Both of these realizations really worried him. It made the hijackers simultaneously so much more unpredictable and so much more dangerous. And when the man accidentally saw his gun during another one of his fits of rage, sending the bullet flying into a door, but miraculously not actually hitting anyone, Francis and the pilots were horrified and knew that they had to find a way to get rid of this guy and fess.

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That's 50% off with free shipping at hellofresh dot com slash hidden stories 50 using the code hidden stories 50 try hellofresh America's number one meal kit today. Now let's get back to today's story. A short while after the hijacker had received his money and had calmed down a bit, he demanded that the crew members go bring him his black backpack, which he had left on his seat.

When this was brought to him and he began rummaging around inside, it seemed pulling out a large homemade lavender parachute. His plan became clear he was going to try to jump from the plane and get away with the cash. And when the hijacker ordered for someone to place the parachute on him, Francis gladly did. After all, getting rid of this guy was what they had been trying to do in the first place.

In Frances's eyes, it seemed like this was what the hijacker had planned to do all along. And at first, at least, it seemed like he clearly knew what he was doing. After equipping his parachute, the man asked the pilots to go down to 10,000 feet. A short while after that, he told them to level off at 7000 feet.

Then he said 6000 feet. He clearly wanted to reach an altitude that would be safe enough to jump from, which made sense. But although the hijacker had planned that pulled out, it soon became apparent to Francis that this man had never skydive before in his entire life. When they finally reached the altitude that he was comfortable with the hijacker instructed the pilots to teach him how to jump out of a plane as the pilots were demonstrating this and telling him what he should do.

He was shocked to notice that his homemade parachute didn't even have a ripcord to open itself up during its descent. As such, they just took a small piece of rope that was being used to bind the Ford Galley curtains and made a quick makeshift ripcord from that, telling the man to pull back after he had left the plane and after the hijacker had gotten all the skydiving steps down, he ordered for someone to go open the rear door of the plane so that he could jump up.

But for a long moment, no one in the cockpit moved. Everyone was thinking the same thing, remembering what they'd been warned about over and over and over again in their training about why no one should ever under any circumstances, open any door or window mid-flight. They all knew that whoever was going to be the one to open that rear door would likely immediately be sucked out of the plane at the moment they did so killing them and they all knew basically what the hijacker was asking was for one of them to give their own life to save everyone else.

Obviously, none of them wanted to be the one who had to do this, but eventually Francis volunteered himself, even though from the very start when he had just heard about the hijacker all the way up until this point, he had been terrified and just struggling to pull himself together. He somehow managed to be selfless in that moment and knew that logically, compared to the three pilots in the cockpit, he was the least important as such.

Even though he desperately missed his family and his children and he desperately wanted to see them again for the safety of the flight and everyone on board after the hijacker was gone, it had to be him. And mustering up one last bit of incredible courage. Francis went onto the intercom again and announced that the rear door of the plane would soon be opened and that all the passengers should have your seatbelts tightly fastened and stared down at the floor until they were told otherwise.

Following his announcement, Francis began to walk with the hijacker to the back of the plane where the rear door was, with the man's grenade pressed against his neck and gun pointed at his ribs. There was nothing Fritz could do to escape the inevitable in front of him. It felt like the longest walk of his entire life, but he eventually did get there after arriving to the rear door and being given the green light from the pilots to open it.

The reality of the situation finally set in, and Francis began to panic. It was the toughest decision of his entire life. If he didn't open the door, everyone would die. But if he did open it, he would likely lose his own life. However, still being held at gunpoint and being urged by the hijacker to quickly open it up, Francis really didn't have a choice by this point.

He attached himself to a nearby shoulder harness, desperately hoping that it'd be enough to prevent him from being immediately shot outside. And with the plane traveling at around 265 miles per hour. Francis opened up the rear door. In an instant, the sudden decompression of the plane swept Frances off his feet and violently pulled him towards the open doorway with only his harness just barely able to keep him from flying away.

The pressure was so strong that the rear door itself had been completely ripped off of his hinges and sent flying back inside the plane. Just barely missing him. As Francis frantically tried to cling on to the sort of harness that was his lifeline, he spun his head around looking for the hijacker and was surprised to see that the man had backed up far away from the nail hole in the plane.

Apparently the guy had a known just what would happen when the plane's door was opened and the extreme pressure and raging winds had surprised him and made him have second thoughts about jumping. However, when Francis shouted at him, The doors open. You may now jump off the plane. He seemed to regain his composure and so did to step back towards the doorway.

But right as the hijacker was getting close and it seemed like he was soon about to jump, he was suddenly sucked in by the strong winds, immediately pinning his body against the side of the doorway. In an instant, the hijackers face and chest were now pressed up against the outside of the plane, while the rest of his body was pressed up against the inside.

When Francis saw the man now folded in half and stuck firmly in place from the pressure while still holding his grenade, he suddenly became afraid that it would explode. As such, almost on instinct, he leaned in and gave the man's legs a hard. This launching him and sending him flying out of the plane. And as Francis staggered back to safety in the passenger cabin of the plane with the help of a few other flight attendants.

He flashed a trained thumbs up to the other members of the flight crew, indicating that everything was now finally over as news of the hijacker leaving the plane spread to the rest of the flight crew and the pilots. No one really celebrated her, cried in relief. There was this heavy cloud of numb, stunned silence in the air, rather than any feelings of joy.

Even though the hijacker was gone. There was still the worry about whether the plane would even have enough fuel to descend after having been forced to stay in the air for so long. So no one was really talking to one another. Everyone was just hoping that they'd be able to make it to the ground in one piece. Luckily, there was just barely enough fuel left in about an hour after the hijacker had stood up and made his presence known.

The plane finally landed safely at the Centennial Airport in Manila with all 278 passengers, three pilots, nine flight attendants, and two flight attendant trainers on board safe and uninjured. Upon arrival, Francis Cabal, as well as Captain Butch Generoso, who was the plane's lead pilot and who also played a major role in calming the hijacker down, were declared heroes.

When Francis finally returned home. He kept on hugging his children, crying and laughing with them for over an hour, just grateful for life. Afterwards, he went to Mass and confessed to pushing the hijacker, worrying that he had sent but was reassured by the priest that he had not done anything wrong. Later that night, Francis then went out bar hopping with some buddies to get some well-deserved relaxation.

When his friends heard about his story and what had happened, they gave him the nickname Mister Pusher. In the days following the hijacking of Philippine Airlines Flight 812, a massive investigation was launched to search for the hijacker, who was identified as being a man named Reginald Troy. Although it was initially unknown whether Reginald had managed to survive the fall from the plane or not.

This question was answered three days later when his body was discovered in a field. Turns out his homemade parachute had malfunctioned in mid-air, costing him his life and the money that he had confiscated from the crew members and passengers was never recovered. And it's unknown whether it was looted by locals or just went unreported by corrupt cops. Shortly after the news of Reginald hijacking and death spread across the Philippines, residents mom and brother actually came out and gave interviews to provide more context to his actions.

They stated that ever since Reginald dad had been murdered over a business rivalry seven years earlier in 1993, and the local police had been unable to arrest and punish the people who were responsible. Reginald had stopped going to school and he fell into a deep hole of pain and anger. Over the years, as his dad's murderers continue to wander around as free men in their town, these feelings of pain and anger only got worse.

And when recently residents wife cheated on him with a local police officer and then ran away with that officer taking residents kids with her. This was the last straw for him. He became even more broken and unstable than before, and he also became determined to move his mom, him and his brother away from their current community as soon as possible.

They would still regularly see the man who had killed his dad, and Reginald felt that that was unacceptable. However, when he saw no quick option to get the money that they needed to move, he decided he would hijack a plane. Residents mum would later say He loved me. He loved his parents. That's why this happened. He was a good son.

I cannot say anything against him. With that being said, I hope you found this week's story interesting if you're new here. Hi, my name is Andy. I tell bizarre, true hidden stories once a week. As always, let me know your thoughts, comments, feedback, stories, suggestions down below. And you can also check out past episodes of hidden stories that you may have missed in the link in the description.

Take care, guys. I'll see you guys soon.