TWA Flight 847

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Two hijackers in the cockpit with Captain Testrake

TWA Flight 847 was an international Trans World Airlines flight which was hijacked by Organization for the Oppressed of the Earth, a group with alleged links to Hezbollah, on Friday morning, June 14, 1985, while flying from Athens, Greece to Rome, Italy. The aircraft with its passengers and crew endured a three-day intercontinental ordeal during which one American passenger was murdered. Dozens of passengers were then held hostage over the next two weeks, until released by their captors.

1 Hijacking events
2 Aftermath
3 References in popular culture
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Hijacking events

Piloted by Captain John Testrake, the Boeing 727 departed at 10:10 am, carrying 153 passengers and crew, including flight engineer Benjamin C. Zimmerman, co-pilot Philip G. Maresca, and flight attendant Uli Derickson.

It was commandeered shortly after takeoff by two Lebanese men who had smuggled pistols and grenades through the Athens airport security. A third intended hijacker, Ali Atwa, had been bumped from the flight and was later arrested in Greece.

[edit] To Beirut, then Algiers

The plane was diverted from airspace over Greece to the Middle East and made its first stop, for several hours, at the Beirut, Lebanon airport, where 19 passengers were allowed to leave in exchange for fuel. At the time, Lebanon was experiencing civil war, and Beirut was divided into sectors with different militia controlling different areas.

On Friday afternoon, the aircraft then continued on to Algiers, Algeria in North Africa where 20 passengers were released during a five-hour stop, before heading back to Beirut Friday night.

[edit] Back to Beirut

The Beirut International Airport, surrounded by a Shiite neighborhood, had no perimeter security and nearby residents could simply drive onto the runway. During this stop, the hijackers identified an American Navy diver, Robert Stethem, among the passengers. They beat him, shot him in the right temple, and dumped his body out of the plane onto the tarmac. Several passengers with Jewish-sounding names were taken off the plane, but not released.

[edit] Algiers again, Beirut again

Nearly a dozen armed men joined the hijackers before the plane returned to Algiers on Saturday, June 15, where an additional 65 passengers were released. It again returned to Beirut for a third time, landing on Sunday afternoon, June 16, and remained there.

The initial demands of the hijackers included:

the release of all Shiites captured by Israel in Lebanon;
international condemnation of Israeli military activity in southern Lebanon;
condemnation of U.S. actions in the Middle East;
and condemnation of the March 8, 1985, car bombing in the Beirut suburb of Bir al Abed earlier that year. Rumors in Beirut suggested that the car bombing, which had killed 80 people, was linked to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

The Greek government released the accomplice Ali Atwa and in exchange, the hijackers released eight Greek citizens. One of the passengers was Demis Roussos, a Greek pop singer.

By Monday afternoon, June 17, most of the hostages had been taken from the plane to a secure location. The 40 remaining hostages were protected by Nabih Berri, the chief ot the Amal militia and the then Minister of Justice in the fractured Lebanon cabinet. One of the hostages was released when he developed heart trouble. The other 39 remained captive until June 30, when they were driven to Syria. The hostages then boarded a U.S. Air Force plane, and flew to West Germany. The liberation of the hostages was followed by the liberation of 735 Lebanese Shiite prisoners by Israel. It is unclear whether this is the result of a deal or an initiative taken by Israel to maintain Nabih Berri's stature in Lebanon.

[edit] Aftermath

Flight attendant Uli Derickson was widely credited with calming the hijackers and saving the lives of many passengers. Because her German was the only common language with the hijackers, who spoke poor English, she acted as translator and liaison for most of the ordeal. Notably, she had defused a tense situation in Algiers when airport officials refused to refuel the plane without payment by offering her own Shell Oil credit card, which was used to charge about $5,500 for 6,000 gallons of jet fuel, which later was reimbursed. She also hid the passports of Jewish passengers so they could not be singled out.

Israel released some of its Shiite prisoners within a month after the hijacking ended. They stated that the release was unrelated to the hijacking and had long been planned.

On October 10, 2001, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, three of the alleged hijackers, Imad Mugniyah, Ali Atwa and Hassan Izz-Al-Din, having been earlier indicted in United States district courts for the 1985 skyjacking of the American airliner, were among the original 22 terrorist fugitives announced by President George W. Bush to be placed on the newly formed FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list. Rewards of $5 million for information leading to their arrests and convictions still are being offered by the United States.

Another one of the hijackers, Mohammed Ali Hammadi, had been earlier arrested in 1987 in Frankfurt, Germany (then West Germany), while attempting to smuggle liquid explosives, two years after the TWA Flight 847 attack. In addition to the West Germany charge of illegal importation of explosives, he was tried and convicted of Stethem's 1985 murder and was sentenced to life in prison. However, he was paroled and released by German officials on December 20, 2005, and returned to Lebanon. ^[1] ^[2] As of February 14, 2006 the United States has formally asked the Lebanese government to extradite Mohammed Ali Hammadi for the murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem during the 1985 hijacking. ^[3] On February 24, 2006, he appeared as well on the Most Wanted Terrorists list, under the name Mohammed Ali Hamadei. He was among the second and most recent group addition of indicted fugitives to be named by the FBI to the list. ^[4] All four fugitives from TWA Flight 847 now remain on the list, and at large.

Hezbollah reportedly denies culpability in the TWA Flight 847 attack, among its denials of numerous other attacks which have been attributed to the group as well. Still, the FBI wanted posters of all four indicted fugitives each alleges their individual membership or leadership role in the organization the FBI names as "Lebanese Hezbollah," which it plainly then calls a "terrorist organization."

[edit] References in popular culture

The 1986 movie The Delta Force was loosely based on this event.
The 1988 made for TV movie The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story was directly based on this event.