{"id":7158,"date":"2025-04-17T19:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T19:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=7158"},"modified":"2025-04-17T19:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T19:06:12","slug":"american-citizen-hijacks-small-plane-in-belize-3-injured-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=7158","title":{"rendered":"American citizen hijacks small plane in Belize, 3 injured: Police"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Three passengers were injured after a U.S. citizen allegedly hijacked a small plane at knifepoint in Belize on Thursday, police said.<\/p>\n

Akinyela Sawa Taylor, a U.S. citizen, hijacked a plane with 13 other passengers on board, officials said.<\/p>\n

Police received information the plane was hijacked by a passenger on board shortly before takeoff. Taylor wanted to be taken out of the country and demanded more fuel for the plane, police said.<\/p>\n

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Belize City Airport in Belize City, Belize.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

M.Torres\/Mtcurado\/Getty Images\/iStockphoto<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The hijacker was fatally shot in the chest by a passenger who had a licensed firearm, police said.<\/p>\n

The aircraft was circling and almost ran out of fuel by the time it landed, police said.<\/p>\n

Three passengers, all from Belize, were injured with knife wounds. The flight had 14 passengers total on board, including two Americans, police said.<\/p>\n

Police were in contact with a passenger on the plane who was sending updates via text, officials said.<\/p>\n

It is not yet clear how the hijacker was able to get on the plane with a knife, police said.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Embassy has been contacted and will help the police with the investigation.<\/p>\n

The suspect was refused entry to the country over the weekend and officials are investigating how he was able to get in, according to police.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three passengers were injured after a U.S. citizen allegedly hijacked a small plane at knifepoint in Belize on Thursday, police said. Akinyela Sawa Taylor, a U.S. citizen, hijacked a plane with 13 other passengers on board, officials said. Police received information the plane was hijacked by a passenger on board shortly before takeoff. Taylor wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7160,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7158\/revisions\/7160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}