The hijacking and subsequent hostage situation played out over the course of 17 days, during which the aircraft crisscrossed the Mediterranean. At the same time many passengers were tied up and beaten and those with Jewish-sounding names were separated from the others. United States Navy diver Robert Stethem was murdered, and his body was thrown onto the airport apron. The ordeal finally ended after some of the hijacker's demands were met and they agreed to release their hostages. Many believed that because of the lawless nature of Lebanon at the time the captors would go without punishment.
Hijacking events
All times are in Algiers time unless otherwise noted
Flight 847 was operated with a Boeing 727–200, registrationN64339.[5] The flight originated in Cairo on the morning of June 14.
Day one
After an uneventful flight from Cairo to Athens, a new crew boarded Flight 847. The new crew in Athens were Captain John Testrake, First Officer Phil Maresca, Flight Engineer Christian Zimmerman, flight service manager Uli Derickson, and flight attendants Judy Cox, Hazel Hesp, Elizabeth Howes, and Helen Sheahan.[6]
10:10 a.m.
Flight 847 departs Athens for Rome. It was hijacked soon after takeoff[7] by two Arabic-speaking Lebanese men who had smuggled a pistol and two grenades through the Athens airport security. One was identified later as Mohammed Ali Hamadi, who was eventually captured and sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany.[8] Hamadi is an alleged member of Hezbollah.[9]
The hijackers assaulted Derickson, dragged her by her hair and breached the cockpit and proceeded to attack and pistol-whip Testrake, Maresca, and Zimmerman.[10]
While still in Greek airspace and with Captain Testrake being held at gunpoint, the hijackers forced the airplane to divert from its original destination of Rome, to the Middle East.
Shortly before they were allowed to land Captain Testrake argued with air traffic control, who initially refused to let them land in Beirut, until they relented. When Beirut air traffic control tried to talk to the hijackers, Testrake interrupted, "He has pulled a hand-grenade pin and he 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."[11]
They remained in Beirut for several hours where 19 passengers were allowed to leave in exchange for fuel.[12]
At the time, Lebanon was in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, and Beirut was divided into sectors controlled by different Shia Amal militia and Hezbollah.
21 passengers were released before heading back to Beirut at 8:25 that night.[7]
Day two
Robert Stethem
Beirut International Airport was surrounded by a Shia neighborhood. It had no perimeter security and had been overrun by Islamist militias, and nearby residents could simply drive onto the runway.
2:20 a.m.
The aircraft arrives in Beirut for the second time.
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.†[7][10][16][17]
During the stopover Seven American passengers, alleged to have Jewish-sounding surnames, were taken off the jet and kept captive in a Shia prison in Beirut, while an additional dozen or so terrorists boarded the flight.[18]
The airplane then departed Beirut at 5:40 a.m.
7:50 a.m.
Flight 847 returns to Algiers where it will spend twenty-five hours on the ground.
Algerian officials boarded the plane to begin negotiations with the terrorists.
The terrorists released three hostages from the aircraft shortly after landing. The Greek government also released an accomplice to the hijackers, Ali Atwa, who was flown to Algiers. In exchange the hijackers released eight Greek citizens, including Greek popular singer Demis Roussos, to be flown by a Greek government business jet from Algiers back to Athens.
All in all 66 hostages, 61 passengers and all 5 female cabin crew members were released in Algiers.[7][19][16]
Day three
12:45 p.m.
The aircraft arrives in Beirut, where it would remain for the remainder of the crisis.
After landing the remaining 29 passengers are removed from the plane and kept captive in Beirut
Days four through seventeen
By the afternoon of June 17, the 40 hostages remaining had been taken from the airplane and kept captive throughout Beirut by Hezbollah.[20]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 on 26 June when he developed heart trouble. The other 39 remained captive until June 30 when they were collected in a local schoolyard after an intervention by U.S. PresidentRonald Reagan along with Lebanese officials.[21] The intervention involved a settlement negotiated by Abraham Sofaer, the Legal Advisor to Reagan's State Department, in which the hostages were released in exchange for Israeli release of Lebanese prisoners. Sofaer argued that this action did not constitute acquiescence to the terrorist's demands because the U.S had objected to Israel’s imprisonment of Lebanese prisoners prior to the incident.[22]The released hostages then met with international journalists and were driven to Syria by the International Red Cross to the Sheraton Hotel and a press conference in Damascus.
A famous image of this hijacking was a photograph showing a gun being held near Captain Testrake, sticking out of the cockpit window, while he and the other pilots were being interviewed by ABC News reporter Charles Glass. 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 entering the scene, as he primarily wanted to be on television.[3]
Flight attendant Uli Derickson was credited with calming one of the hijackers during a fuel-quantity incident during the first leg to Beirut, because she spoke German, the only European language which either hijacker spoke. 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 Oilcredit card, which was used to charge about $5,500 for 22,700 L (6,000 gal) of jet fuel, for which she was reimbursed. She also refused to cooperate with the hijackers in identifying for them the passports of any passengers with Jewish-sounding names so they could not be singled out.
USSStethem, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer commissioned in 1995, was named in memory of Robert Stethem.[23] The aircraft involved in the hijacking was put back into service. It remained in service for TWA until the aircraft was retired on September 30, 2000. It ceremoniously operated the airline's final revenue flight of their Boeing 727 fleet.[24]
Alleged perpetrators
Hezbollah specialist Magnus Ranstorp of the University of St Andrews credits "leading" Hezbollah members Hassan Izz-Al-Din (later involved with the Kuwait Airways Flight 422 hijacking in 1988) and Mohammed Ali Hammadi, whose brother was one of the commanders of the Hezbollah Special Security Apparatus, with assisting Hezbollah operatives in the "supervision and planning of the incident itself and as an active participant in the defusion and resolution".[15]
On October 10, 2001, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, three of the alleged hijackers, Imad Mughniyeh, Ali Atwa, and Hassan Izz-Al-Din, having been indicted earlier 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 resulting in the arrest and conviction of Atwa and Izz-Al-Din are still being offered by the United States.
Mohammed Ali Hammadi was arrested in 1987 in Frankfurt, West 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.[25][26] 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.[27] On February 14, 2006 the United States formally asked the Lebanese government to extradite Mohammed Ali Hammadi for Stethem's murder.[28] On February 24, 2006, he appeared as well on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, with the name Mohammed Ali "Hamadei" (sic). He was among the second group of indicted fugitives to be named by the FBI to the list.[29]
Several news outlets reported the announcement by Hezbollah of the death of Imad Mughniyeh in a car bomb explosion in Syria on February 13, 2008.[30] The remaining three fugitives from TWA Flight 847 remain on the list, and at large.[31]
On September 19, 2019, Greek police arrested a 65-year-old Lebanese man who was accused of involvement in the hijacking. The man was arrested at Mykonos during a passport check for cruise ship passengers.[32] He was aboard a cruise ship that had crossed Rhodes, Santorini and Mykonos. Mykonos was the last stop before returning to Turkey.[33] He was later released after police determined it was a case of mistaken identity.[34]
Hezbollah reportedly denies culpability in the TWA Flight 847 hijacking, among its denials of numerous other attacks that have been attributed to the group.[35]
Film
The Delta Force film of 1986 is based on the TWA 847 hijacking.
† There is some discrepancy between sources as to when the Stethem incident occurred with some sources indicating it took place during the first stop in Beirut while others suggest it occurred during the second. Overall, more reliable sources seem to agree the murder took place during the second stop.
↑ See Hostage in a Hostage World: Hope aboard Hijacked TWA 847 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1985) for Zimmermann's account of this experience.
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