On August 10, 1993, Shi Yuepo hijacked a Boeing 767 passenger aircraft, Air China's CA973, that was flying en route from Beijing to Jakarta via Xiamen.

The hijacked plane was forced to land at Taoyung Airport in Taipei, where it stayed for two and half hours before flying back to Xiamen and onward to Jakarta.

Shi was sent back from Taiwan on June 28 this year, under an agreement between China's mainland and Taiwan Province.

Thirty-eight-year-old Shi Yuepo, a native of Hebei Province, north China, admitted he had fled to Taiwan by hijacking the Air China aircraft because he was ashamed of not being able to repay his 300,000-yuan (some 36,145 U.S. dollars) debts to his friends.

(Xinhua News Agency 09/18/2001)