[3]: 373 On 10 September 1976, Zvonko and his wife, Julienne, along with Petar Matanić and Frane Pešut, hijacked a commercial Trans World Airlines plane, Boeing 727, Flight 355, heading from New York to Chicago.

The device at Grand Central Terminal was found and taken to NYPD Rodman's Neck Firing Range where police attempted to dismantle it rather than detonate it.

[4] Zvonko and Julienne Bušić were charged with and convicted of conspiracy air piracy resulting in death, which carried a mandatory life sentence with parole eligibility after 10 years.

[4] Three years after the trial, Judge John R. Bartels reduced the sentence, which made both Zvonko and Julienne eligible for parole by the end of 1979.

In the suit she stated that the police supervisor placed the officers under his command at unnecessary risk by attempting to disassemble the device while ignoring safety procedures, rather than simply detonating it remotely.

At a Croatian Parliament session in 2002, a resolution was passed to request the transfer of Zvonko Bušić to Croatia, which was forwarded to the Council of Europe.

[1] Bušić spent his last two years of imprisonment at the Communications Management Unit (CMU) in Terre Haute, Indiana, transferred from Allenwood, Pennsylvania.

[7][10] Along with several other groups, including the PLO, the F.A.L.N., the Jewish Defense League, and most recently the FBI and the Yugoslav State Security Administration (UDBA or UDSA),[11] Bušić was considered as a person of interest in the 1975 LaGuardia Airport bombing, which killed 11 people.