Patrick Dolan Critton (born 1947)[1] is an American former teacher and the first successful aircraft hijacker in Canada.
[3] On December 26, 1971, Critton boarded Air Canada Flight 932, a DC-9, in Thunder Bay, Ontario bound for Toronto.
[4][5] At the time of the incident, Critton mistakenly thought he was a fugitive in New York City for a series of crimes, including bank robbery.
[7] Critton remained a fugitive until 2001, when he was found by a Canadian detective through a Google search, which at that time produced a single hit with his name that revealed the location where he was teaching.
Canadian prosecutors, in order to avoid prejudicing the jury, based on the views of the recent September 11 attacks, which had happened the day after Critton was arrested, portrayed Critton to jurors not as a terrorist, but as a kidnapper and robber whose motivation was to gain the flight to Cuba.