Woman Seized in 1972 PSA Hijacking

SACRAMENTO —  Police making a routine inquiry in a child welfare case identified and arrested a woman fugitive wanted in the hijacking of an airliner from California to Cuba 15 years ago.

Police Sgt. Bob Burns said Tuesday that officers arrested Ida Patrice McCray, 36, Sunday while following up a request to look in on her three children.

Records showed that FBI agents had been seeking McCray since January, 1972, when she used the surname Robinson. She and Allen Gordon Sims allegedly hijacked a Pacific Southwest Airlines plane in San Francisco and ordered it to Havana after smuggling firearms aboard in the cradle of a 5-month-old baby, the FBI said. The passengers got off the plane at Los Angeles and it flew on to Tampa, Fla., then to Cuba. The hijackers were identified through photographs taken by a passenger.

Sims, 38, was ultimately extradited to Los Angeles for trial in 1979 and is currently serving a 50-year sentence in prison, the FBI said.

McCray was ordered held without bail for transfer to Los Angeles, where she was indicted in 1972. Authorities said McCray apparently had been supporting herself and her children by working as a computer operator.