Background
On January 29, 1972, Garrett B. Trapnell hijacked a TWA plane flying from Los Angeles to New York. He demanded $306,800 (equivalent to $2,234,734in 2023), the release of the imprisoned Angela Davis, and a conversation with President Nixon. [3] The hijacking was resolved when Trapnell was disarmed after being shot by an F.B.I. agent who pretended to be a negotiator. [3]
On May 24, 1978, Trapnell's friend, 43-year-old Barbara Ann Oswald, a US Army staff sergeant on leave, hijacked a Saint Louis based charter helicopter and forced the pilot to land in the yard at United States Penitentiary, Marion. While landing the aircraft, the pilot, Vietnam War veteran Allen Barklage, struggled with Oswald and managed to wrestle the gun away from her. Barklage then shot and killed Oswald, thwarting the escape. [1]
Incident
On December 21, 1978, Robin Oswald, the 17-year-old daughter of Barbara Annette Oswald, hijacked TWA Flight 541 and demanded Trapnell be freed or she would detonate dynamite strapped to her body. She was remembered by the hostages aboard the flight as a "beautiful" but serious girl, never showing alarm at her actions. [4]
FBI negotiators were able to free the hostages and have Oswald surrender with no injuries or deaths. The bomb that was strapped to her chest later emerged to be railroad flares wired to what appeared to be a doorbell. [5] Robin Oswald was charged as a juvenile with charges not being announced as is the law in Illinois. [6]
TWA Flight 847 was a regularly scheduled Trans World Airlines flight from Cairo to San Diego with en route stops in Athens, Rome, Boston, and Los Angeles. On the morning of June 14, 1985, Flight 847 was hijacked soon after take off from Athens. The hijackers demanded the release of 700 Shia Muslims from Israeli custody and took the plane repeatedly to Beirut and Algiers. Later Western analysis considered them members of the Hezbollah group, an allegation Hezbollah rejects.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1972.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1971.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1976.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1977.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1978.
In September 1970, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked four airliners bound for New York City and one for London. Three aircraft were forced to land at Dawson's Field, a remote desert airstrip near Zarqa, Jordan, formerly Royal Air Force Station Zarqa, which then became PFLP's "Revolutionary Airport". By the end of the incident, one hijacker had been killed and one injury reported. This was the second instance of mass aircraft hijacking, after an escape from communist Czechoslovakia in 1950.
Uli Derickson was a German American flight attendant best known for her role in helping protect 152 passengers and crew members during the June 14, 1985, hijacking of TWA Flight 847 by militants with alleged links to Hezbollah.
Veterans Airport of Southern Illinois , also known as Williamson County Regional Airport, is five miles west of Marion, in Williamson County, Illinois, United States. The airport is owned by the Williamson County Airport Authority. It sees one airline, subsidized by the federal government's Essential Air Service program at an annual cost of $2,562,819 or $141 per passenger. On November 11, 2016 during the grand opening ceremony for the new terminal, the airport was renamed to "Veterans Airport of Southern Illinois" to honor veterans and better reflect the regional nature of the airport.
Mohammed Ali Hamadei, also known as Mohammed Ali Hamadi is a Lebanese terrorist who is on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list, being most notable for being the lead hijacker in the TWA Flight 847 hijacking. An alleged member of Hezbollah, he was convicted in a West German court of law of air piracy, murder, and possession of explosives for his part in the 14 June 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847.
The United States Penitentiary, Marion is a large medium-security United States federal prison for male and female inmates in Southern Precinct, unincorporated Williamson County, Illinois. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility also has an adjacent satellite prison camp that houses minimum security male offenders.
Garrett Brock Trapnell was a con man, bank robber, and aircraft hijacker of the 1960s and early 1970s. Trapnell robbed a string of banks in Canada, frequently posed as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, masterminded a $100,000 jewelry store heist in Freeport, Bahamas, and simultaneously maintained marriages with at least six women. When arrested for his crimes, he frequently feigned madness and successfully used the insanity defense to be committed to mental institutions, from which he would later escape or be released on the grounds that he was no longer dangerous. While serving life imprisonment for the hijacking of a passenger airliner in 1972, he was the subject of a book, The Fox Is Crazy Too, written by journalist Eliot Asinof.
Lufthansa Flight 592 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that was hijacked on February 11, 1993. The Lufthansa-operated Airbus A310-300 was hijacked by Nebiu Zewolde Demeke, a 20-year old Ethiopian man seeking asylum who forced the pilot to fly to New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport. The aircraft landed safely, and the gunman surrendered peacefully and without incident. He was charged with aircraft hijacking by a United States district court, and was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment.
United Airlines Flight 696 was a flight from San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California, to Seattle, Washington, with 75 people in board on March 13, 1978, which was hijacked by a man claiming to have a bomb. The incident resulted in no serious injuries and the arrest of the hijacker, Clay Thomas.
The apparent success and instant notoriety of the hijacker known as D. B. Cooper in November 1971 resulted in over a dozen copycat hijackings within the next year all using a similar template to that established by Cooper. Like Cooper, the plan would be to hijack an aircraft, demand a ransom, and then parachute from that aircraft as a method of escape. To combat this wave of extortion hijackings, aircraft were fitted with eponymous "Cooper Vanes", specifically designed to prevent the aft staircase from being lowered in-flight. The Cooper Vane, as well as the widespread implementation of other safety measures such as the installation of metal detectors throughout American airports, would spell the end of the Cooper copycats.
