IAmNotYourRealDad posted:

The Chowchilla school bus kidnapping has always struck a chord with me.

Basically, a school bus is en route to dropping the children off at their homes one afternoon. The driver sees a motorist in distress and stops to assist only to have the bus overtaken by three men wearing nylon stocking hats and waving guns. In a matter of minutes, the driver and 26 students (ranging from ages 5-14) find themselves as hostages. They are forced to board a van and taken on an 11 hour disorienting drive. They are then made to climb into a hole into the ground. After about 12 hours, and with no idea of when or if they would be freed, the captives began to look for any possible way to escape. They manage to climb out of their chamber and 36 hours after their capture, the driver and children are free. However, during the hours that their captives had been underground, their kidnappers had not been inactive. The next step of their plan was to demand a $5 million ransom. Unfortunately for them, they are soon greeted with the news that the hostages had safely escaped. The article goes more in depth as to their panic at this point and time because they had failed to plan for this particular scenario and investigations quickly zoom in on their men.

I can't imagine being one of those school children heading home only to be confronted with scary men brandishing weapons.
I can't imagine being the driver, responsible for the children under such duress.
I can't imagine the terror of the parents wondering where their children have disappeared to.

The whole thing is pretty damned unnerving. The article is worth a read as I've left out some fascinating details including, but not limited to, the driver being hypnotised for clues (he remembered their license plate!) to the bungled plans of the perpetrators who had set out to perform a "perfect crime" (as one of the defense lawyers later told The Chronicle, the trio's plan "would make a great...comedy because nothing went right.")