HONG KONG: Pilots & Pirates

In a Macao teahouse, Wong Yu, a babyfaced, 24-year-old farmer and a few of his friends decided to sell their rice paddies and take up piracy. They had $3,000 for expenses, and one of them, Mexican-born Chiu Tok, had learned to fly planes in Manila. Last week, Wong Yu confessed that they had committed the first recorded act of air piracy.

Their quarry was a Catalina flying boat of Cathay Pacific Airways which made a regular run between Portuguese Macao and British Hong Kong.

One sultry afternoon last month, the four bought tickets for...