Nikola Kavaja, a Yugoslav-born anti-Communist whose hatred for the dictator Tito spurred him to subversion and terrorism, including the hijacking of an American Airlines flight in 1979, died Monday in Belgrade, Serbia. Most sources indicate he was 75.

The Serbian newspaper Blic reported that the cause was a heart attack.

In November 1978, Kavaja, then a machinist living in Paterson, N.J., was among a handful of men arrested in connection with the bombing of a Yugoslav diplomat’s home three years earlier.

After Kavaja and five of the men were convicted in Chicago in May 1979, he and four of the others were released on bail. The sixth, the Rev. Stojilko Kajevich, remained in jail.

Kavaja returned home to Paterson. It was June 20, on his return flight to Chicago to be sentenced, that he burst into the cockpit of the Boeing 727 jetliner with a homemade bomb he had smuggled onboard and demanded Kajevich’s release.

The plane landed in Chicago, where he released the passengers and most of the crew. He then directed that the plane return to New York, where American Airlines had agreed to supply a larger jet. Kavaja switched planes, and hours later, the jet stopped for refueling at Ireland’s Shannon Airport. There, Kavaja surrendered, for reasons only he knew. He served 20 years in prison.