Trans World Airlines Flight 847 was a flight from Cairo to San Diego with en
route stops in Athens, Rome, Boston, and Los Angeles. On the morning of Friday,
June 14, 1985 Flight 847 was hijacked by members of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad
shortly after take off from Athens. The hijackers were seeking the release of
700 Shi'ite Muslims from Israeli custody.
The passengers and crew endured a three-day intercontinental ordeal. Some
passengers were threatened and some beaten. Passengers with Jewish-sounding
names were moved apart from the others. United States Navy diver Robert Stethem
was killed, and his body was thrown onto the tarmac. Dozens of passengers were
held hostage over the next two weeks until released by their captors after
some of their demands were met. Hijacking events
Flight 847 was operated with a Boeing 727-200, registration N64339. The flight
originated in Cairo on the morning of June 14. After uneventful flight from
Cairo to Athens, a new crew boarded Flight 847. The new crew in Athens were
Captain John Testrake, First Officer Philip Maresca, Flight Engineer
Christian Zimmermann, Flight Service Manager Uli Derickson, Flight Attendant
Judith Cox, Flight Attendant Hazel Hesp, Flight Attendant Elizabeth Howes, and
Flight Attendant Helen Sheahan. At 10:10am, Flight 847 departed Athens
for Rome. It was commandeered shortly after takeoff by two Arabic-speaking
Lebanese men who had smuggled a pistol and two grenades through the Athens
airport security. One was later identified as Mohammed Ali Hamadi, who
was later captured and sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany.
= To Beirut, then Algiers = The plane was diverted from its original
destination of Rome, in airspace over Greece, to the Middle East and made its
first stop, for several hours, at the Beirut International Airport in Lebanon,
where 19 passengers were allowed to leave in exchange for fuel. Shortly
before landing, air traffic control initially refused to let them land in
Beirut. Captain Testrake argued with air traffic control until they relented.
"He has pulled a hand-grenade pin and is ready to blow up the aircraft if he has
to. We must, I repeat, we must land at Beirut. We must land at Beirut. No
alternative." During this time, Lebanon was in the
midst of a civil war, and Beirut was divided into sectors controlled by
different Shia militia Amal and Hezbollah.
That afternoon, the aircraft continued on across the Mediterranean to Algiers,
Algeria, where 20 passengers were released during a five-hour stop before
heading back to Beirut that night. = Back to Beirut =
Beirut International Airport, surrounded by a Shia neighborhood, had no perimeter
security, which had been over-run by Islamic militias, and nearby residents
could simply drive onto the runway. The hijackers had systematically and
regularly beaten all the military passengers, but during this stop they
selected U.S. Navy diver, Robert Stethem, beat him, shot him in the right
temple, and dumped his body out of the plane onto the ramp and shot him again,
seeking permission from other Shia Muslims operating the control tower to
obtain more fuel. Seven American passengers, alleged to have
Jewish-sounding surnames, were taken off the jet and held hostage in a Shia
prison in Beirut. = Algiers, Beirut again =
Nearly a dozen well-armed men joined the hijackers before the plane returned to
Algiers the following day, Saturday, 15 June, where an additional 65 passengers
and all five female cabin crew members were released.
The hijackers wished to fly to Tehran, but mysteriously returned to Beirut for
a third time on Sunday afternoon, 16 June, and remained there for unknown
reasons. The initial demands of the hijackers
included: the release of the "Kuwait 17," those
involved in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kuwait
the release of all 766 mainly Lebanese Shias transferred to Israel's Atleat
Prison in conjunction with immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from
southern Lebanon international condemnation of Israel and
the United States The Greek government released the
accomplice, Ali Atwa, and in exchange the hijackers released eight Greek
citizens, including Greek pop singer Demis Roussos, to be flown by a Greek
government business jet from Algiers back to Athens.
By Monday afternoon, June 17, the 40 remaining hostages had been taken from
the plane and held hostage throughout Beirut by the Hezbollah. Nabih Berri was
the chief of the Amal militia and the 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 intervention by US President
Ronald Reagan with Lebanese officials on 30 June, when they and the pilots held
captive on the airplane were collected in a local schoolyard and met with
international journalists, then driven to Syria by the International Red Cross
to the Sheraton Hotel and a press conference in Damascus. The hostages
then boarded a U.S. Air Force C-141B Starlifter cargo plane and flew to
Rhein-Main AB, West Germany, where they were met by US Vice President George H.
W. Bush, debriefed and given medical examinations, then flown in a TWA
Lockheed non-stop to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home by President and
Mrs. Reagan. Over the next several weeks, Israel released over 700 Shia
prisoners, while maintaining that the prisoners' release was not related to
the hijacking. Aftermath
The iconic image of this hijacking was a photograph showing a gun being held to a
pilot's head, sticking out of the cockpit window, while all three pilots
were being interviewed by reporters. The scene was interrupted by one of the
French-speaking Hezbollah guards left by the hijackers to hold the crew after
most passengers and the cabin crew had been released in Algiers, and the
remaining men were held in captivity elsewhere in Beirut. The young
militiaman may have unloaded the gun before crashing the scene, as he
primarily wanted to be on television. Flight attendant Uli Derickson was
credited with calming one of the hijackers during a fuel-quantity
incident during the first leg to Beirut, because of her German language ability,
the only common language either man had. Neither of whom spoke English. Notably,
she interrupted an attempt to end the hijacking 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, for which she was reimbursed. She also refused to cooperate with the
hijackers in identifying passports with Jewish-sounding names so they could not
be singled out. = Nationalities =
= Alleged perpetrators = Hezbollah specialist Magnus Ranstorp of
the University of St. Andrews credits "leading" Hezbollah members Hassan
Izz-Al-Din and Mohammed Ali Hammadi whose brother was one of the heads of
the Hezbollah SSA. Iran assisting Hezbollah operatives in the "supervision
and planning of the incident itself and as an active participant in the defusion
and resolution." 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 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 the arrest and conviction of Atwa and Izz-Al-Din
are still being offered by the United States.
Another of the hijackers, Mohammed Ali Hammadi, was arrested in 1987 in
Frankfurt, Germany, while attempting to smuggle liquid explosives, two years
after the TWA Flight 847 attack. In addition to the West German 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. There
has been speculation that his parole was granted as part of a covert prisoner
swap, in exchange for the release of Susanne Osthoff. Taken hostage in Iraq a
month prior, Osthoff was released the week of Hammadi's parole. On February
14, 2006 the United States formally asked the Lebanese government to
extradite Mohammed Ali Hammadi for Stethem's murder. On February 24, 2006,
he appeared as well on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, under the name
Mohammed Ali Hamadei. He was among the second group of indicted fugitives to be
named by the FBI to the list. Several news outlets reported the
announcement by Hezbollah of the death of Imad Mugniyah in a car bomb explosion
in Syria on February 13, 2008. The remaining three fugitives from TWA
Flight 847 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.
Still, the FBI wanted posters of each of the indicted fugitives alleges their
individual membership or leadership role in the organization the FBI names as
"Lebanese Hezbollah," which it plainly then calls a "terrorist organization."
Film The Delta Force film of 1986 is based on
the TWA 847 hijacking. The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli
Derickson Story is a 1988 TV movie based on the incident focusing on the role of
flight attendant Uli Derickson. References
External links FBI Most Wanted Terrorists at fbi.gov
web site Top Hezbollah militant slain
John Testrake, 68, TWA pilot who became hero in hijacking