TWA Flight 847
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Trans World Airlines Flight 847 was hijacked on Friday June 14, 1985, while flying from Athens to Rome. 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 men who had smuggled pistols and grenades through the Athens airport security. A third hijacker, Ali Atwa, was bumped from the flight and was later arrested.
The plane stopped for several hours at Beirut, where 19 passengers were allowed to leave in exchange for fuel. The aircraft continued on to Algiers where 20 passengers were released during a five-hour stop, before heading back to Beirut. At the time, Lebanon was experiencing civil war, and Beirut was divided into sectors with different militia controlling different areas.
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. Nearly a dozen armed men joined the hijackers before the plane returned to Algiers where an additional 65 passengers were released. It again returned to Beirut, landing on Sunday afternoon, and remained there.
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 folk singer.
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. Rumors in Beirut suggested that the car bombing, which killed 80 people, was linked to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
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, a moderate Shiite leader of the Amal militia. He was also an official in the fractured Lebanon government. 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, boarded a U.S. Air Force plane, and flew to West Germany.
Israel released some of the prisoners within a month after the hijacking ended. They stated that the release was unrelated to the hijacking and had long been planned.
One of the hijackers, Mohammed Ali Hammadi, was arrested two years later in Frankfurt, Germany. He was tried and convicted of Stethem's murder and was sentenced to life. He was released by German officials on December 20, 2005. His extradition from Lebanon is now being sought by American government. [1] On October 10, 2001, three of the alleged hijackers, Imad Mugniyah, Ali Atwa, and Hassan Izz-Al-Din were placed on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list. Rewards of $5 million for information leading to their arrests and convictions are currently being offered by the United States.
As of February 14, 2006 the United States has formally asked the Lebanese government to extradite Mohammed Ali Hammadi to them for the murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem during the hijacking.
Stewardess Uli Derickson was widely credited with calming the hijackers and saving the lives of many passengers.
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.