Dawson's Field hijackings
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In the Dawson's Field hijackings (September 6, 1970) four jet aircraft bound for New York City were hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. TWA Flight 74 from Frankfurt am Main and Swissair Flight 100 from Zürich-Kloten Airport landed at Zerqa, also known as Dawson's Field, a remote desert airstrip in Jordan formerly used as a British Royal Air Force base. Ortega, Sergio. The hijacking of El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam was foiled; hijacker Patrick Arguello was shot to death and his partner Leila Khaled was subdued and turned over to British authorities in London. Two hijackers prevented from joining the El Al flight instead hijacked Pan Am Flight 93, a Boeing 747, diverting the large plane to Beirut and then Cairo rather than the small Jordanian field. A fifth plane, BOAC Flight 775 from Bahrain, was hijacked on September 9 by a PFLP sympathizer and brought to Dawson's Field in order to pressure the British to free Khaled.
For many years, the incident was known as "the blackest day in aviation." Tugend, Tom. ["The Day a New Terrorism Was Born"], The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, February 24, 2006, accessed on May 01, 2006. While the majority of the 310 hostages were transferred to Amman and freed on September 11, the PFLP segregated the flight crews and Jewish passengers, keeping 56 hostages in custody, and on September 12 used explosives to destroy the empty planes in front of the international media.BBC News, On This Day: 12 September.
The PFLP's exploitation of Jordanian territory in the drama was another instance amidst years of increasingly autonomous Palestinian activity within the Kingdom of Jordan — an existential challenge to the Hashemite monarchy of King Hussein. Hussein declared martial law on September 16, and from September 17 to 27, his forces deployed into Palestinian-controlled areas in what became known as Black September in Jordan, nearly triggering a regional war involving Syria, Iraq, and Israel with potentially global consequences. Swift Jordanian victory, however, enabled a September 30 deal in which the remaining PFLP hostages were released in exchange for Khaled and three PFLP members in a Swiss jail.
Several months prior to the Dawson's Field hijackings, the PFLP bombed Swissair Flight 330 bound for Israel, killing 47 on February 21, 1970.
Between mid-1968 and the end of 1969, no fewer than 500 violent clashes occurred between Palestinian guerrillas and Jordanian security forces. Cross-border attacks by the Palestine Liberation Organization against Israel invited heavy Israeli reprisals that resulted in high Jordanian civilian and military casualties. In June 1970, an Arab mediation committee intervened to halt two weeks of serious fighting between the two sides. Global Security.org Several days before the hijackings, King Hussein survived two Palestinian-sponsored assassination attempts.
This civil conflict was another part of the background to the Dawson's Field hijackings, which drew the government of Jordan into an international incident precipitated by the PFLP, and eventually led to the events known as Black September in Jordan.
El Al Flight 219 (type Boeing 707, serial 18071/216, registration 4X-ATB) originated in Tel Aviv, Israel, and was headed to New York City. It had 148 passengers and 10 crew members aboard. It stopped in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and was hijacked shortly after it took off from there by Patrick Arguello, Public Broadcasting System website for [Hijacked], a Nicaraguan American, and Leila Khaled, a Palestinian.
The original plan was to have four hijackers aboard this flight, but two were prevented from boarding in Amsterdam by Israeli security — these two conspirators, traveling under Senegalese passports with consecutive numbers, Public Broadcasting System, Hijacked website, were prevented from flying on El Al on September 6. They purchased first-class tickets on Pan Am Flight 93 and hijacked this flight instead.
After being informed by intercom that a hijacking was in progress, Captain Uri Bar Lev decided not to accede to their demands:
Bar Lev put the plane into a steep nosedive which threw the two hijackers off-balance. Argüello reportedly threw his sole grenade down the airliner aisle, but it failed to explode, and he was hit over the head with a bottle of whiskey by a passenger after he drew his pistol. Arguello shot steward Shlomo Vider and according to the Israeli account, was then shot by a sky marshal. Khaled was beaten by security and passengers, while the plane made an emergency landing at Heathrow Airport; she claimed that Arguello was shot four times in the back after being beaten and bound.[[Citing sources citation needed]] Vider underwent emergency surgery and recovered from his wounds, while Argüello died in the ambulance taking both him and Khaled to Hillingdon Hospital. Khaled was then arrested by the British government.
It landed at Dawson's Field in Jordan at 6:45 p.m. local time. Hijacked
Hijackers gained control of the cockpit and stated, "This is your new captain speaking. This flight has been taken over by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP]."
Flight Director John Feruggio recalled,
The plane first landed in Beirut, where it refueled and picked up several associates of the hijackers, along with enough explosives to destroy the entire plane. It then landed in Cairo after uncertainty whether the Dawson's Field airport could handle the size of the new Boeing 747 jumbo jet. The plane was blown up at Cairo seconds after everybody deplaned. An audio transcript of Feruggio's landing instructions to passengers was recorded by one of them and can be heard in a National Public Radio report.[link]
As groups of the remaining passengers and crew were assembled on the sand in front of the media, members of the PFLP, among them Bassam Abu Sharif, made statements to the press. Sharif claimed that the goal of the hijackings was "to gain the release of all of our political prisoners jailed in Israel in exchange for the hostages." Public Broadcasting System, American Experience,
On September 10, fighting between the PFLP and Jordanian forces erupted in Amman at the Intercontinental Hotel, where the 125 women and children were being kept by the PFLP, and the Kingdom appeared to be on the brink of full-scale civil war.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/hijacked/filmmore/pt.html The destruction of the airplanes on September 12 highlighted the impotence of the Jordanian government in Palestinian-controlled areas, and the Palestinians declared the city of Irbid to be "liberated territory," in a direct challenge to Hussein's rule.
On September 13, the BBC World Service broadcast a government announcement in Arabic saying that the U.K. would release Khaled in exchange for the hostages. UK Confidential, January 1, 2001
According to United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, "At this point, whether because [American] readiness measures had given [King Hussein] a psychological lift or because he was reaching the point of desperation, Hussein resolved on an all-out confrontation with the fedayeen." Kissinger, Henry. . Time Magazine, October 15, 1979.
Complicating the international crisis was the fact that Syria and Iraq, client states of the USSR, had already threatened to intervene on behalf of Palestinian groups in any confrontation with the Kingdom of Jordan. In an astounding turn of events, according to British documents declassified under the "thirty year rule," an anxious King Hussein asked the U.S. and U.K. to pass a request to Israel to bomb Syrian troops if they entered Jordan in support of the Palestinians. When a Syrian tank crossed the border, Israeli aircraft overflew the area in warning.
About two weeks after the start of the crisis, the remaining hostages were recovered from locations around Amman and exchanged for Leila Khaled and several other PFLP prisoners. The hostages were flown to Cyprus and then to Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport, where on September 28 they met President Nixon, who was conducting a State visit to Italy and the Vatican.The Richard M. Nixon Library & Birthplace, , PDF transcript "[Exchange of remarks with released American hostages]." Speaking to reporters that day, Nixon noted he had told the released captives that
During the crisis, on September 11, President Nixon initiated a program to address the problem of "air piracy," including the immediate launch of a group of 100 federal agents to begin serving as armed air marshals on U.S. flights. Nixon's statement further indicated the U.S. departments of Defense and Transportation would determine whether X-ray devices then available to the military could be moved into civilian service.The Richard M. Nixon Library & Birthplace, , PDF transcript "[Statement announcing a program to deal with Airplane hijacking]" September 11, 1970.
The PFLP officially disavowed the tactic of airline hijackings several years later, although several of its members and subgroups continued to hijack airplanes and commit other violent operations.[link]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.Background
The PFLP
Palestinian/Jordanian tensions
Adding further tension to the ongoing conflict was civil strife within Jordan itself. After the 1967 Six Day War, in which Israel had captured the Jordanian-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River, thousands of Palestinians were displaced across the river into Jordan, where they became an increasingly autonomous challenge to the Hashemite monarchy of the young King Hussein.Airport security
Airplane hijackings were a comparatively new development in Europe and the Middle East. Accordingly, airline security was in its infancy; metal detectors were not typically used to screen passengers, and though some of the hijackers' luggage was searched, in each case they boarded the airplanes carrying concealed weapons on their persons.The hijackings
El Al Flight 219
"So half an hour (after take off) we had to move. We stood up. I had my two hand grenades and I showed everybody I was taking the pins out with my teeth. Patrick stood up. We heard shooting just the same minute and when we crossed the first class, people were shouting but I didn't see who was shooting because it was behind us. So Patrick told me 'go forward I protect your back.' So I went and then he found a hostess and she was going to catch me round the legs. So I rushed, reached to the cockpit, it was closed. So I was screaming 'open the door.' Then the hostess came; she said 'she has two hand grenades,' but they did not open (the cockpit door) and suddenly I was threatening to blow up the plane. I was saying 'I will count and if you don't open I will blow up the plane.'" Baum, Philip. Aviation Security International September, 2000.
"I decided that we were not going to be hijacked. The security guy was sitting here ready to jump. I told him that I was going to put the plane into negative-G mode. Everyone would fall. When you put the plane into negative, it's like being in a falling elevator. Instead of the plane flying this way, it dives and everyone who is standing falls down."
TWA Flight 74
TWA Flight 74 (type Boeing 707, serial 18917/460, registration N8715T) was an around-the-world flight carrying 141 passengers and a crew of 10. It was hijacked shortly after taking off from Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In an interview for the film Hijacked, Flight 74's purser, Rudi Swinkles, recalled, "I saw a passenger running toward first class. I ran after him, and when he came to first class to the cockpit, he turned around, had a gun in his hand, and pointed the gun at me, and said, 'Get back, get back.' So right away, I dove behind the bulkhead first class divider, and I hid behind it, over here." Hijacked Swissair Flight 100
Swissair Flight 100 (type Douglas DC-8, registration HB-IDD) was carrying 143 passengers and 12 crew from Zürich-Kloten Airport, Switzerland, to New York. It also landed at Dawson's Field.Pan Am Flight 93
Pan American Flight 93 (type Boeing 747, serial 19656/34, registration N752PA) was carrying 153 passengers and 17 crew. The flight was from Brussels, Belgium, to New York, with a stop in Amsterdam. The two hijackers bumped from the El Al flight boarded and hijacked this flight as a target of opportunity. "We were ready for take off in Amsterdam, and the airplane came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the runway. And Captain Priddy called me up into the cockpit and says, 'I'd like to have a word with you.' I went up to the cockpit, and he says, 'We have two passengers by the name of Diop and Gueye.' He says, 'Go down and try to find them in the manifest, because I would like to have a word with them.' ... So Captain Priddy sat them down at these two seats over here. He gave them a pretty good pat. They had a Styrofoam container in their groin area where they carried the grenade, and the 25-mm pistols. But this we found out much later."
BOAC Flight 775
On September 9, a fifth plane, BOAC Flight 775, a VC-10, was hijacked on its voyage from Bahrain to London via Beirut and brought to Dawson's Field. This was the work of a PFLP sympathizer who wanted to influence the British government to free Leila Khaled.Days in the desert
On September 7, 1970, the hijackers held a press conference for 60 members of the media who had made their way to what was being called "Revolution Airport." About 125 hostages were transferred to Amman, while the American, Israeli, Swiss, and West German citizens were held on the planes. Raab, David. The New York Times Magazine, August 22, 2004. . Reprinted at http://blackseptember1970.com Jewish passengers were also held. Passenger Rivke Berkowitz of New York, interviewed in 2006, recalled "the hijackers went around asking people their religion, and I said I was Jewish." Another Jewish hostage, 16-year-old Barbara Mensch, was told she was "a political prisoner."
"Tensions between London and Washington are reflected in a bitterly acrimonious telephone conversation between top Foreign Office official Sir Denis Greenhill and senior White House aide Joseph Sisco... 'I think your government would want to weigh very, very carefully the kind of outcry that would occur in this country against your taking this kind of action.' Greenhill replied: 'Well, they do, Joe, but there is also an outcry in this country,' expressing concern that 'Israel won't lift a bloody finger and... our people get killed. You could imagine how bad that would look, and if it all comes out that we could have got our people out but for the obduracy of you and other people so to speak... I mean people say, why the bloody hell didn't you try?'" Davis, Douglas. The Jerusalem Post, January 2, 2001.
Resolution and consequences
King Hussein declared martial law on September 16 and initiated the military actions later known as the Black September conflict. Hostage David Raab described the Jordanian military actions: "We were in the middle of the shelling since Ashrafiyeh was among the Jordanian Army's primary targets. Electricity was cut off, and again we had little food or water. Friday afternoon, we heard the metal tracks of a tank clanking on the pavement. We were quickly herded into one room, and the guerrillas threw open the doors to make the building appear abandoned so it wouldn't attract fire. Suddenly, the shelling stopped."
"[A]s a result of what they had been through... the possibility of reducing hijackings in the future had been substantially increased, because the international community was outraged by these incidents. Now we have not only mobilized guards on our planes, but we are developing facilities... for the purpose of seeing that people who might be potential hijackers do not get on planes with weapons or explosive material." The Richard M. Nixon Library & Birthplace, , PDF transcript [Exchange of remarks with reporters at Leonardo da Vinci Airport about released American hostages.] September 28, 1970.
Documentary film
In 2006, Ilan Ziv described the Dawson's Field hijackings in Hijacked, an hour-long episode of PBS's program The American Experience, which he wrote and directed and which originally aired on February 26, 2006. Ziv included archival footage of the events and interviewed hijackers, hostages, members of the media, and politicians. References
See also
External links
Further reading
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