Luis Armando Peña Soltren, accused of forcing Pan Am pilots to take him to Cuba, detained at JFK airport

This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

A man wanted for hijacking a plane leaving New York 40 years ago has been arrested after flying back there from Cuba.

Luis Armando Peña Soltren had remained a fugitive since the 24 November 1968 hijacking of a Pan Am flight bound for Puerto Rico. The 66-year-old was arrested at John F Kennedy international airport yesterday, authorities said.

Soltren is expected to be arraigned tomorrow in Manhattan.

"As the 1968 charges allege, he terrorised dozens of passengers when he and his cohorts wielded pistols and knives to hijack Pan American flight 281," said Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the district.

It was at JFK airport in 1968 that three men boarded the Pan Am flight and hijacked it, according to an indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan. The flight, bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico, was diverted to Havana, Cuba.

Dozens of US flights were hijacked and diverted to Cuba in the 1960s by a mix of self-described radical leftists, fugitives seeking asylum on the Caribbean island and criminals scheming to extort money from the US government or airlines.

Court papers say Soltren and two others sneaked weapons and ammunition on to the flight in a nappy bag.

Two men, José Rafael Ríos Cruz and Miguel Castro, were arrested in the mid-1970s, and pleaded guilty. A fourth man, described as a leader of the Puerto Rican Movement for Liberation, was accused of involvement but found not guilty.