Air pirate

However, just as traditional seafaring pirates target sailing ships, air pirates serve a similar role in science fiction and fantasy media: they capture and plunder aircraft and other targets for cargo, loot and occasionally steal an entire aircraft, sometimes killing the crew members in the process.

Their dress and speech may vary; it may correspond to the particular author's vision of the story's setting, rather than their seafaring counterparts, or they may be modeled after stereotypical sea pirates.

Some air pirates are depicted using airborne aircraft carriers as mobile bases from which to conduct raids.

There have also been a handful of instances where interceptor aircraft have threatened an airliner or cargo plane, forcing it to land, including cases like Ryanair Flight 4978 where the flight of the airliner was legal and approved; Irish prime minister Micheál Martin referred to the Ryanair incident as "piracy in the skies.

"[72] In the notorious Airstan incident, an Ilyushin Il-76 shipping weapons to the besieged government of Afghanistan was attacked and forced to land by a Taliban-flown jet fighter.