Miss Macao

Miss Macao was a seaplane, owned by Cathay Pacific and operated by a subsidiary. On 16 July 1948 she became the victim of the first of a commercial aircraft.

The ''Miss Macao'' was on a routine flight from Macau to Hong Kong. She was hijacked a few minutes after take off by four men carrying guns, one of whom demanded that the co-pilot surrender the controls. The co-pilot refused and was shot. The pilot, Dale Warren Cramer, who had been up in the dome of the PBY, jumped down to see what was going on and was shot five times in the back by a Chinese man with a machine gun. He then collapsed onto the flight controls. The plane went into an uncontrolled dive and crashed into the sea. Twenty-six of the 27 people aboard died in the crash. The only survivor was the leader of the hijackers . The motives of the hijackers are not known. They may have been Chinese s, with an economic rather than political motive .

The lone survivor, Huang Yu , was brought to court by the Macau police, but the Macau court suggested that the prosecution should be brought in Hong Kong instead, since the plane was registered in Hong Kong and most of the passengers were from there. However, the British colonial government in Hong Kong stated that the incident happened over Chinese territory in which the British have no jurisdiction. In the end, Huang was acquitted.