Write an essay on hijacking a plane in which I was there
Answers
I moved from my native Cork to New York when I was 18. Eleven years later, when I boarded TWA Flight 840 on 29 August 1969, I was a seasoned traveller who enjoyed flying.
The plane was headed for Tel Aviv, but my friend Cathy and I were going to Athens, the second last stop; two friends were joining the flight in Rome. Cathy and I were in first class with only two other passengers when we left Italy. We had noticed the woman who was sat directly behind us while we were on the coach to the plane at Leonardo da Vinci airport. She was very striking, young and glamorous. The other passenger, a man, was in the aisle seat of the front row on the opposite side of the plane. Not long after we took off, the woman moved to the aisle seat just in front of me, and struck up a conversation with the man. We were quite impressed, and thought she seemed sophisticated, chatting up a man she didn’t know.
Then, as one of the stewardesses, as they were called then, was bringing the captain his lunch, the woman shoved her aside and rushed into the cockpit, rapidly followed by the man. I knew immediately that we’d been hijacked. Cathy couldn’t believe it. The woman, who we later found out was Leila Khaled, announced that the plane had been taken on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and said that there was one among us who was responsible “for the killing of Palestinian men, women and children”. Cathy and I were moved to the back of the plane to seats near our friends. People were very shocked, but there was no panic. I imagine this was because the crew remained very professional, and most people hadn’t witnessed the hijack.
Everyone was looking around, wondering who the “one among us” was. It later emerged that the PFLP thought Yitzhak Rabin, then the Israeli ambassador to Washington, was on the flight. He wasn’t.
The flight was eerily quiet, just the background hum of the plane and at one point a small baby crying. After four hours or so, the cabin manager made an announcement, reassuring us that we had enough fuel. I hadn’t even thought about fuel, so that made me very anxious. The anxiety wasn’t alleviated by discovering that two small Israeli jets were flying on either side of our plane. I was so scared that my knees were knocking, but I honestly didn’t think I was going to die. I figured that the hijackers would put their own self-preservation first and make sure we landed safely. Not everyone felt the same. Cathy was terrified and the woman in front of me said goodbye to her husband, “in case we die”.
Finally, the crew told us we were making an emergency landing in Damascus and could take one small bag with us. I thought that if I died, it didn’t matter what I took, but if not, I’d need my passport, traveller’s cheques and makeup. The captain landed the plane smoothly and we were rapidly evacuated. The crew told us to run in the direction of the wind, but it was getting dark and there was no wind, only heat. Behind us, the hijackers threw grenades into the cockpit, destroying it and setting the plane alight.
The hijackers fired guns at the fuel tanks as we ran barefoot though a field of thorns. Amazingly, there wasn’t enough fuel left to detonate. The Syrian authorities sent buses to take us to the University of Damascus for interrogation. As I wasn’t American or Israeli, they weren’t too interested in me, and eventually I was reunited with Cathy and our friends.
Experience: I was out at sea when a tsunami struck
The following day, the Syrians gave us shoes and took us to see the Palestinian refugee camps. I hadn’t much love for Khaled, but seeing where a whole generation had grown up homeless made me view things in a different light: those camps were a breeding ground for revolutionaries, and understandably so. We finally got to Athens at 3am on Sunday morning, grateful to be alive and determined to make the most of our vacation. I still fly, but now insist on sitting near an emergency exit.