SPEAKER_16 0:15

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast and our museum are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airline, Pan American World Airways. If you're not familiar with Pan Am, welcome. We are honored to have you here, and for you to learn about what we're all about. If you already know of Pan Am, worked for, or flown on the airline, or just love our history, it's good to be with you again. So with that, let's get this episode in the air, so to speak. Welcome aboard your Pan American jet clipper. My name is Tom Betty, and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Our mission statement is to educate, celebrate, and inspire present and future generations by preserving historical and diverse personal stories of Pan American World Airways. Please visit our website for more information at the Pan Am Museum.org. Again, our website is the Pan Ammuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. In this episode, we will be covering the coordinated hijackings of four passenger airliners, all bound for New York, on the same day in 1970. Later in the program, we will be joined by Pan Am Captain Paul La Chapelle. He joined Pan Am in 1955 and will discuss his 30-year career with the airline, flying both the 707 and the 747. He retired from United Airlines in 1993. But first, here are the four planes that were involved with the September 6th, 1970 coordinated hijacking by terrorists. TWA, flight 741, Boeing 707, departing from Frankfurt with 150 people on board. Swiss Air, Flight 100, a DC-8 departing from Zurich with 157 people on board. L flight 219, a Boeing 707 departing from Amsterdam with 148 people on board. And Pan Am Flight 93, a brand new Boeing 747 named Clipper Fortune, originating in Brussels, with a short stop in Amsterdam, with 152 passengers and 17 crew members on board, under the command of Captain John Pridy, with first officer Patrick Levix, Flight Engineer Julius Ziobah, and in-flight director John Carruccio. Another Pan Am captain and his crew were deadheading on this flight. Three days later, a fifth plane, BOAC Flight 775, departing from Bahrain, bound for London, with 114 people on board, was hijacked. The attacks were orchestrated by members of a group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a secular Palestinian, Marxist, Leninist, revolutionary terrorist organization based in Jordan. Their goal was to divert planes to a remote landing strip in the Jordanian desert, hold the passengers and crew as hostages, and use them to gain the release of Palestinian militants held in European and Israeli prisons. The guerrilla group was still in shock by the decisive Israeli victory over Jordan, Syria, and Egypt in the 1967 Six Days War. The group believed that only through unconventional action would their political goals be met. The 1970 hijackings are considered to be a watershed moment when a new era of global terrorism began and shocked the world. And also, air travel would never be the same with the advent of extensive security screenings. Here's a clip from CBS News on September 6th, 1970.

SPEAKER_22 4:46

This is the CBS Evening News with Roger Mudd. Sponsored by Standard Oil Company, New Jersey.

SPEAKER_05 5:00

Now, direct from the CBS Newsroom in New York, in color, here is Harry Reisner substituting for Roger Mud.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Good evening. The Middle East conflict boiled over today with four airplane hijackings and the Israeli government pullout from the Middle East peace talks. Arab guerrillas have claimed responsibility for the hijackings, including one that was aborted at London's Heathrow Airport. CBS News correspondent Charles Collingwood reports.

SPEAKER_14 5:25

The only plane that got away from today's Palestinian orchestrated extravaganza of hijacking was significantly the L L flight from Amsterdam, which made a successful emergency landing at London Airport. One would-be hijacker dead, the other subdued. LL flights not only carry armed security guards these days, but the crews have been trained for just such emergencies. And when the hijackers made their move near the English coast today, the drill went into effect. The steward grappled with the gunman, his girl accomplices' arms were pinioned, and the pilot undertook violent acrobatics to throw the intruders off balance. The hijacker wounded the steward and was in turn shot dead by the guard. But the girl was subdued, and in spite of the extreme danger from gunfire in a thin-skinned jet, the flight made it into London, still under L Al and not the hijackers' command. The popular front for the liberation of Palestine, to which today's coordinated series of hijackings are attributed, is a Marxist Palestinian splinter crew. Its purpose was obviously to try to throw a larger monkey wrench into the movement toward peace in the Middle East than the guerrillas have been able to achieve on the battlefield itself. Charles Collingwood, CBS News, London.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

There were 148 passengers aboard the L Al plane, and nearly 450 aboard the three other planes which were hijacked and diverted toward the Middle East. All the flights were headed toward New York when they were hijacked, and three of the incidents occurred within a period of about an hour and a half. A TWA flight from Tel Aviv was hijacked shortly after takeoff from Frankfurt, and commando leaders say that it has landed at a revolutionary airport somewhere in Jordan. Switzer says that its jet from Zurich, hijacked over France, has landed at a military airfield in Jordan. Palestinian commando leaders said the plane would be held in an effort to secure the release of three commandos, prisoners in Switzerland, since a shootout at an LL plane in 1969. Pan Am's flight from Brussels, the only 747 jet hijacked today, was taken over after takeoff from Amsterdam and has landed at Beirut in Lebanon.

SPEAKER_16 7:36

TWA and Swiss air pilots were forced to fly to Jordanian airspace and land in the desert at a remote airstrip called Dawson's Field, a former British airbase that was abandoned. The Pan Am plane flew to Beirut, Lebanon to refuel. Unbeknownst to the crew, they were also picking up more hijackers in Beirut. Several boarded the plane with bags filled with explosives. Once refueled, the Pan Am Jumbojet was once again airborne, and the hijackers informed the crew that they were to fly to Dawson's Field in Jordan. Pan Am Captain Pretty successfully convinced the hijackers that the new 747 needed a runway that was longer and could support the weight of a jumbojet in order to safely land, and the desert airstrip did not meet these qualifications. The hijackers then forced the pilots to fly the plane to Cairo, Egypt. President Richard M. Nixon cut his Labor Day weekend vacation short in California after being alerted of the hijackings and quickly returned to Washington. The President's primary concern was the delicate Cold War balance of power in the Middle East, and how this coordinated hijackings could quickly destabilize relations with the Soviet Union and devolve into an armed conflict. The United States was a staunch ally of Israel, and as a counterpoint that the Soviet Union supported most of the Arab countries in the region. President Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger would personally manage the crisis from the White House Situation Room and direct the State Department on all diplomatic communications. The majority of the hostages were American citizens, and two of the three planes still under the hijackers' control were American-flagged aircraft. Here's another clip from CBS News on the next day, September 7th, 1970.

SPEAKER_05 9:27

Direct from our newsroom in New York, in color. This is the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

Good evening. Tonight, on a desert air strip in Jordan, Palestinian terrorists are holding as hostages almost 200 passengers and crewmen aboard two of those jetliners hijacked yesterday. Earlier, they released and took to Amman about 100 women, children, and elderly people, acknowledging they might not be able to survive another night in the plane. But they retained custody of American, British, West German, and Swiss male passengers, along with Israeli nationalists. And they threatened to blow them up, along with the Transworld Airline and Swiss air jets, if their demands for the release of a number of commandos from Western and Israeli jails are not met. There's been quite a bit of confusion over whether the terrorists also were demanding the release of Sirhan Sirhan, who's awaiting execution in California for the murder of Senator Robert Kennedy. A Palestinian guerrilla spokesman in Lebanon said Sirhan's freedom is being sought. But a guerrilla of fisherman Amman denied that report, and it also was denied by the State Department. During the day, both Switzerland and West Germany bowed to the guerrilla demands and agreed to release six terrorists they've been holding. Presumably, the Red Cross will handle the transfers. In Washington, long hours were devoted to the hijackings, and we have a report from George Herman.

SPEAKER_05 10:47

State Department experts worked much of the night on possible plans for arranging the release of the hijacked passengers. Secretary of State Rogers, who'd kept in touch, arrived in mid-morning and invited the representatives of the four other nations involved to meet with them. And a little after one o'clock, the ambassadors of Britain and Israel and diplomatic representatives from West Germany and Switzerland met with the Secretary for about 25 minutes. When they emerged, Britain's ambassador, John Freeman, said little, explaining there was too much at stake. Israel's ambassador Rabin denounced the hijackings as pure blackmail and said Israel would release no prisoners in any such exchange deal. But he said the legal responsibility for obtaining the release of hijacked passengers belongs, after all, to the nations in which the various planes are registered: America and Switzerland. A task force of State Department experts is still at work investigating what, if anything, can be done to help the hijacked passengers. George Herman, CBS News, Washington.

SPEAKER_04 11:48

The third passenger jet Arab guerrillas managed to hijack came to a fiery end overnight. This was the Pan Am jet that started from Amsterdam to New York, only to make its next landing at Beirut Lebanon under the supervision of its abductors. Then on to Cairo in a violent end to a new $20 million 747. Blown up by the hijackers only minutes after all of the people on board were hustled roughly to safety. Some of them suffered bumps and bruises in the scramble to get off. Others reported hearing gunfire. Apparently, no one was seriously injured. Later on, personnel on the plane were to report the explosive charges were not armed until all the passengers were off. Apparently, this didn't make anyone on board feel much more secure. They all lost their baggage. The hijackers, you're now seeing three of them, reportedly treated the passengers calmly and with courtesy throughout the flight. Three of them took over the plane after it left Amsterdam. Several others got on after Beirut. One passenger, a pregnant woman, was assisted from the plane on a stretch. All the passengers were later released, picked up by another Pan Am plane and flown to Rome, where they were met by CBS News correspondent Winston Verde.

SPEAKER_07 13:00

The plane, how soon was it that they blew up the plane? Very fast. We had no time every afternoon. It took about a minute and a half to three minutes until the front of the plane blew up and cocked it. And then I would say within the next five minutes the whole thing just went. If it wasn't for the fact that the Panama crew was so big, we wouldn't have made it. We had a rapid, rapid uh evacuation. How fast did you all get off the plane? Oh, I'd say we were all out about I you have about 90 seconds. It took about it took about two to three seconds just to slide down our uh on our the ramp that it's it's like a rubber ramp that you have, you just slide right out. What orders did the uh hijackers give you? Well, they didn't give any orders, they just came around asking people what their nationality was. He had a gun in one hand, he had a hand grenade in the other hand. And where was all your baggage? All blown up and all blown up with complete ash, man. All ash, very far out. Thanks very much.

SPEAKER_06 13:58

Didn't the hijackers tell you they were going to blow off the plane before you got off? Definitely. They informed the captain they were going to destroy the aircraft, and they were gonna do it within 15 seconds after the engine stopped. And how fast were you all able to get off that plane? I would estimate in about 30 seconds, and we were about uh from here to your terminal away from the airplane when the first bombs went off. But you were 150 passengers, were you not? That's right, but there were five doors on each side, and they evacuated them very, very quickly. It was very efficient. The crew, to be very honest about it, should be truthfully uh commended. They want to give the captain and the flight service a supervisor some kind of a medal. These people were really heroes. They welded this thing together and they did a beautiful job. Uh uh, what is your name, please?

SPEAKER_18 14:38

My name is Eileen Monarchan. And you were from uh, New York.

SPEAKER_09 14:42

And you were a hostess aboard this plane?

SPEAKER_18 14:44

Yes, I was.

SPEAKER_09 14:45

Uh, could you tell me what happened during the last half hour before you landed in Cairo?

SPEAKER_18 14:50

Uh just about half an hour before that uh the hijacker told us that we were going to evacuate the airplane. He told he asked us how we would evacuate it because the 747 is different. And we explained to him about um if we opened the doors that the ramps would go out, the slides would go out, and he said, Alright, we can brief the crew. And we got the crew all together, the director and purchase and all the stewards said, and we briefed them on what was going to happen. And we were going to open the doors and the slides out, and they had given us eight minutes in which to evacuate the plane. Eight minutes. Eight minutes. Well, that's what they gave us originally. So we briefed the crew and everybody was together and we briefed them. And um everything was very smooth. We told the passengers what was going on, we explained to them exactly what to do and what doors to go to.

SPEAKER_08 15:30

Now, how long did it actually take you to evacuate the plane with the five pounds?

SPEAKER_18 15:34

When the time came, I think I'm not sure. I think it took anywhere from one to two minutes to evacuate. Um, and within three minutes, the cockpit blew up. The cockpit was the first place to go. It was the lounge that had been the whole plane was fired, but the lounge went. It um I had re I was one of the last in the airplane. There were two or three of us left, and I had run about a hundred yards from the airplane, and the lounge blew. And I turned around and I looked and I could see that the whole plane was lighted. All the lights were on the landing here and everything. All the lights were on and the lounge had blown. There was fire coming out of there. So I think that it was within about three minutes.

SPEAKER_08 16:08

Now they told you before you landed that that did they tell you that they intended to blow up the plane.

SPEAKER_18 16:13

Um, they never said exactly. They told us that they we had eight minutes to get everybody out and away from the plane. They told us to be 600 meters from the plane. Or wait, 300 meters from the plane. But you had a good idea that they intended to blow it up. We had seen the dynamite. They had dynamite all over this last cabin. We knew it was there and we knew what they were going to do it. So back to Burfon. You're quite welcome.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

Some of the passengers needed help in leaving the plane at Rome because of the injuries they had received while jumping off the plane in Cairo. And one of the more bizarre aspects of this bizarre story, a guerrilla spokesman on Syria's Radio Damascus today denounced Israel's stationing of armed guards on its airliners as a gross violation of international law.

SPEAKER_16 16:57

Two days later, on September 9th, 1970, the terrorists would hijack another passenger jet. This time a BOAC Vickers VC-10. A British plane was specifically chosen to demand the release of the female hijacker from the El All plane that was captured in London when the hijacking attempt failed. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine now had 429 hostages. Remember, by this time, the 169 passengers and crew of the Pan Am 747 were already rescued in Cairo two days before and safely out of harm's way, although the plane was blown up at the airport. On September 11, 1970, President Nixon instituted a new and extensive airport security program. The Nixon administration mobilized a hundred federal agents to begin serving immediately as armed sky marshals on U.S. flights. He also ordered the Departments of Defense and Transportation to work together and expand the use of X-ray machines, which were already in use by the military, across American civilian airports. On September 12th, the terrorists would relocate the remaining hostages of the three aircraft to other locations, and in an act of theatrics with the world attention watching, blew up all three planes in a dramatic fashion. This was carried around the world in news coverage. On September 16th, Jordanian King Hussein declared martial law in his country and took military action against the Palestine Liberation Organization, also known as the PLO, under the leadership of Yasser Arafat. The military conflict was waged primarily for eleven days and would be known as Black September or the Jordanian Civil War. By the end of September, all of the hostages were eventually freed, in exchange for the female El Al hijacker held in London and several other Popular Front prisoners. Remarkably, there were no passenger or crew fatalities. However, four jet airliners were destroyed, totaling a loss of about a hundred million dollars at least. That's upwards of seven hundred and thirteen million, calculated with today's inflation rate. Two years later, on September 5th, 1972, a group of Palestinian terrorists named Black September attacked Israeli athletes in the Olympic village in Munich. This group was founded in 1971 to seek retribution on Jordan's military action in response to the hijackings and to assassinate King Hussein. Here's a summary of why the hijackings were a turning point for America and the world. It's from CNN's Stephen Collinson from the network's program The 70s: One Nation under Change.

SPEAKER_09 20:10

Starting tomorrow, the armed guards will be aboard many American planes.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

Guards on airplanes are privately described as only the first step in an overall Nixon yet tough with skyjacking policy that will continue unfolding after the current hostage drama ends.

SPEAKER_21 20:29

Moving with a sense of urgency, the president hastily assembled the power structure of Washington to outline his plan to combat aerial hijacking.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

It was September 11, 1970, at the dawn of a new age of terror and vigilance. The drama in Washington erupted after four US-bound airliners were hijacked and diverted to the Middle East by Palestinian terrorists. It was a moment that helped make the 1970s the decade that international terrorism really came of age. Richard Nixon's chief of staff, H.R. Holderman, wrote at the time that the president was very anxious to develop some dramatic administration action about hijackings, need tough, shocking steps, especially guards on planes. Nixon himself wrote in a statement that the menace of air piracy must be met. We can and we will deal effectively with piracy in the skies. For the first time ever, terrorists had threatened the notion that flying was a romantic and carefree adventure. And to a nation unfamiliar with this level of brute security, some questions lingered. Like exactly who were these armed agents flying on planes.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

These will be very sophisticated, highly trained, experienced, mature men.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Skepticism at the time ran high, perhaps even inside the White House.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

One well placed White House source says the president wants to do all he can. He is determined to be firm about this. But the source goes on to say, let's face it, there is a limit. Bad luck if they got an airliner hijacked.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

The actions taken in the months that followed changed commercial aviation forever. President Nixon soon laid the foundations for the air travel security regime that you see every time you take a flight today. Things like electronic surveillance at airports nationwide, armed guards to board planes, and 100% screening of passengers and hand baggage. Just a few years later, the threat of sky pirates dissipated and complacency set in, leaving loopholes that would not be obvious until September 11th, 2001.

SPEAKER_16 22:39

At the beginning of this program, we mentioned that there was a Pan Am captain and crew that was deadheading on Pan Am Flight 93. There will be time later in the podcast for a more formal introduction, but I'd like to jump right into the interview with Pan Am Captain Paul LeChapelle. Welcome to the program, sir.

SPEAKER_15 23:01

Well, thank you. Fun to be with you.

SPEAKER_16 23:04

So take us back to September 6, 1970, when you arrived in Brussels.

SPEAKER_15 23:10

Well, that was the beginning of an interesting time. I had been working in Africa with a full crew of flight attendants and flight engineer and a reserve co-pilot and co-pilot. And we were just trying to get home. Pandam had assigned us to Deadhead Home on Flight 93 out of Brussels. And uh maybe some of you readers may not quite understand what deadheading means. It means just hitching a ride on our own company since they wanted to get us back to New York so they could give us some other responsibilities, another flight. Of course, we had been off for two weeks, so we weren't going to be flying for some time. But anyway, deadhead means just flying on one of our own aircraft to get back home.

SPEAKER_16 23:55

So you flew into Brussels, uh, just a normal, normal flight operation.

SPEAKER_15 24:00

That's right. Uh the time in Africa was uh all charter work for Air Congo. As I mentioned, it took two weeks, but uh that morning, uh, or the morning of flight 93 that we were assigned to Ted at home on, uh I was having breakfast uh before the flight. And lo and behold, there's Pat Lovicks sitting at breakfast. So I joined him, and of course, we're old, old friends.

SPEAKER_16 24:24

Um he was the first officer?

SPEAKER_15 24:26

Yes, he was the first officer. Uh Jack Prittdy, the captain, was not there. He had not come down for breakfast. But now Pat and I had a long exposure of to all many kinds of things together. Uh, we were flight instructors for Pan Am and a whole bunch of things that we had done with Pan Am together. So I was very friendly with him. He mentioned that it was a 747. Well, I knew he was the first officer on the 747. Uh and uh he said, Hey, he says, Why don't you uh couple the cockpit with us? Uh Jack, we'd be certainly happy to have you. And I said, I would love to do that. I'd never been in a 747. They were brand new, and I mean really brand new, uh, a few months with Pan M. And uh so I thought this is a great opportunity. Okay, let's do it. So uh when we showed up at the airport, he asked Jack if I could ride in the cockpit. And uh and Jack, of course, I'd known him many years too. He says, sure, come on. So that's what started it. Uh the leg between uh Brussels and uh Amsterdam was uneventful, and for me was quite a lot of fun because I was riding in one of the most amazing airplanes that I had ever been in.

SPEAKER_16 25:39

And then things started to change uh in Amsterdam.

SPEAKER_15 25:42

Amsterdam, um, of course, we had some time on the ground, uh disembarking and embarking passengers, and and I had planned to ride in the jump seat again, taking off out of uh uh Amsterdam, uh, which I subsequently did. Anyway, uh we were, I think, a little late out of departure, as I recall. I think I have notes to that effect. And I was up in the cockpit and things started to get interesting. Pan Am called and said that El Al had said we had uh two passengers uh that they had refused passage to. We were still at the gate, and and Jack Prudy said, Well, do you have any any information on them? And they said, No. Uh there was nothing exciting about it. Uh so we decided uh so Jack says, Well, that's interesting. L Al refusing passage. Um, maybe we ought to go down and take a look at these guys. And uh, well, now don't forget, you're gonna understand I'm in a a blue suit. I do not have a uniform on because I'm I'm uh dead heading. And he grabs him by the sleeve and he says, Come on, let's go down and take a look at these guys. Oh, okay. So down the stairs, the spiral staircase we go, and and these fellas are both standing at the foot of the stairway. Both are have dark features, well dressed, suit, shirt and tie, spoke very well. And the captain, uh, as I recalled, um, asked him something about themselves. And um, do you mind if we search you or if I search you? And I looked on kind of aghast at this because uh it's not something I would have done, but that's okay. Hey. So Jack Pretty pats these guys down. As after that, uh, he decided uh to uh I think he and the purser, John Frugio, uh at least some of the things I've read about, uh I don't remember this too well, this piece right here. Uh, he and John Frugio, the in-service flight director, I have read uh went throughout the cabin and looked for things and went to these guys' seats and inspected the seats and found absolutely nothing, nothing curious. Now, you gotta remember that uh while there were a lot of hijackings, um, we really never had this on our mind very much. Uh, there had been many hijackings though, and Pan M had been exposed to quite a few also, but that was not on our mind. I must admit, that's the last thing in the world I was thinking of. And these guys looked okay. I really had no misgivings. Uh and Jack says, Well, let's get out of here. I said, Okay, so we climb up the spiral staircase up into the cockpit. I jump back into the jump seat, he climbs into the captain's seat, and uh, and we taxi out. We're given takeoff clearance. So, and to make things even more interesting, right out in the end of the runway was a CB, a cumular nimbus, uh thunderstorm. And I remember this just like it happened yesterday, and Levix was doing the fly them, and we took off. And um, Pat Levix had to make a little turn. Uh, you know, uh a takeoff procedure is quite well defined for airliners. So you have to fly a specific path that the controllers are watching very carefully. Well, we had to divert maybe two or three or four degrees just to sneak by a thunderstorm at the end of the runway. And right then the departure controller says, uh you're not being hijacked, are you, Clipper? Whoa. Well, and then he said, uh, we want you to know that three airplanes are in the sky right now, and they've been hijacked.

SPEAKER_16 29:33

Wow. What were you guys thinking?

SPEAKER_15 29:36

Well, there was stone silence. Um we talked about it, uh, and then of course, the subject of our our new uh friends down below, we'll put it, uh, came up. We're climbing out, and I said, you know what? I said, I'm out of here. I said, I'm going down to get a Manhattan or something. No, I wasn't flying, I could have a drink if I wanted to. And at this point, after all that had gone on already, I wanted to go back and sit with my crew. They were in first class. Um, so I sat down next to I think it was Jerry Fishgerald, and I told him, I said, You're not gonna believe what just happened. So I related the whole thing. I don't know how long went by, maybe not long, maybe 15-20 minutes. Obviously, we're heading west towards Kennedy. And when I sat down next to Jerry, I noticed the these two uh curious fellows uh were sitting now in first class. Now, those aren't the seats that I remember looked at. Uh, I don't think Jack Pretty looked at those seats. I think these guys were sitting further back. And anyway, this really got me thinking. And I said to Jerry, you know, I this is uh right then one of these guys climbs out of the seat and walks towards the spiral staircase. Looks like he was gonna go up into the first into the you know the overhead lounge uh course that's right behind the cockpit door. I said to Jerry, let's follow him. I was really curious. And and uh and I had just finished telling him about everything that happened up in the cockpit, how we had found out that there were other hijackings. And we climbed the staircase, and and I've got to explain what the configuration was above then. Uh on the second floor, then there was a bar in the back of the upstairs lounge. This is a rather large area. And in fact, uh there were seats, there were first class seats. In fact, Jack Pretty, the captain's wife, was with us, and she was up there with us in the lounge. This fellow then oh, also I should tell you that there were two rows of seats right behind the cockpit, close to the cockpit. There were first class seats, and uh this fellow sat himself down in the first row, and Jerry and I sat right behind him. And at this point, I'm I'm a little I'm more than a little bit interested uh because I don't like I don't like the reason he's there all by himself. He didn't come with his buddy, then right then he leaps out of his seat, pulls out a 38-caliber revolver, sticks it right in my face because I was right behind him, and started screaming and shaking and sweating. And he said, get downstairs. Wow, very interesting. Um, I leaped, leapt up, leaped up, whatever, jumped out of the seat. Terry followed me. I happened to be the closest to the stairwell. Well, this guy is screaming and renting and raving, and I told him a couple of times, don't shoot. I said, There's no point shooting us. I said, and boy, he was close, I'll tell you. At least it looked it to me. Uh so I was closest to the stairway just because of where I was sitting. So I I backed up to the stairs and I backed down with my hands up, turned around, ran down the stairs, and oh, right at the bottom of the stairway, standing there, was the other hijacker. He had his revolver out. He was pointing it at me, screaming and sweating and screaming at me to put my hands up, and and and curiously, or of course he had a suit jacket on, as I mentioned, and curiously he has his hand inside of his suit jacket pocket, and he's fumbling around with something, and then I see find out what that something is. He pulls out a hand grenade while he's holding the pistol out of my face, and then with the finger on the pistol hand, the little finger pulls out the safety pin off the hand grenade and then says, Go sit down. Well, I guess most people know what can happen to a hand grenade. Uh uh it needs a safety pin in it. Uh, if you release the handle, it will explode. Some have time delays, some don't. Anyway, I had no idea what this was. I did know one thing that it would have blown up the airplane. So I ran back to the seat. Uh Jerry was right with me, and we sat down next to our other crew members. Uh and told them everything that just went on. Um anyway, that was the beginning. Um the very beginning.

SPEAKER_16 34:43

How did everybody react? Did some did the passengers know what was going on?

SPEAKER_15 34:49

At that point, since one hijacker was in the cockpit, the other one, all the passengers in first class, of course, anyone close to us, uh saw the other hijacker with a gun and hand grenade. Um then I believe I don't know how soon, but I believe pretty soon he he started to patrol the cabin. At that moment, um now we're talking about maybe an hour after takeoff at this point. And uh it's getting dark. Uh, because we left late in the afternoon, as I recall, or anyway, whatever time it was, it was getting dark. And uh and we discussed what to do about it. That the the four of us were sitting together. Our I don't know where our flight attendants were, they were somewhere around us, but I don't I don't remember where they were. Uh, but anyway, the four of us started trying to figure out how we could do something about this, and it it was just no way, not with two guys. Oh, and incidentally, the guy upstairs had a hand grenade too, and he had pulled a pin, so that's how he took over the cockpit.

SPEAKER_16 35:58

Um the four guys you're mentioning is your this is your your deadheading crew, my deadheading crew and myself, yeah.

SPEAKER_15 36:06

So now we had a situation go where we had a guy, a hijacker in the cockpit with a gun and a hand grenade, and a hijacker down below patrolling with a hand grenade. We continued for probably an hour or so. And while the four of us tried to figure out what to do, and then the first officer said, Jeez, he says, Look at my he had a compass. Oh, first of all, it was night, it was we were in the clouds, we had no idea which direction we were going, what was happening, until the first officer said, See, Paul, look at this. He says, We're heading east. New York's west. Obviously, the airplane had turned around. We we hadn't noticed it because of clouds, whatever. Now, in the in the right then, at that same moment, um, I I I've got to explain to you that we we carried, believe it or not, Pan American carried machetes in all their airplanes. And the question's gonna be a machete. What do you need a machete for? Well, the idea was that if there was a crash, you might be able to use it to hack your way out of the aluminum. So the 747 had a machete, I believe, in adjacent to each doorway. So the hijacker knew this or found out in some manner, and grabbed our one of our machetes and went all the way down the cabin, all the way down one side and all the way back the other side while we were watching, and hacked all the telephones off the walls with our own machetes. Every communication, communication capability with the cockpit was severed. Don't forget, there were no cell phones in those days, nothing like that. There was no longer any way to talk to the cockpit while the night were on. GUI, who was one of the hijackers, the one who was on our floor, uh, decided he wanted to, he knew who we were, obviously. So he wanted to interrogate us. And he also wanted to find anyone else on the airplane that could cause trouble. So in the process, he found some few military folks. Uh he collected all the passports, every passport of everyone on the airplane. So he could tell personally who could cause him trouble. That's my idea, anyway. And maybe he had other ideas, but he certainly could figure that out. There was some military, as I said, and some diplomatic personnel. He wanted to know all about us, interrogated everyone, interrogated the the people with us, and he spent considerable time with me. And little by little I began to realize what was going on. He wanted to know about my background, and then uh got around to finally asking uh if I could fly the airplane. Whoa. Um and so, of course, I had already thought beforehand that if this came up, I would have to convince him under no circumstances whatsoever could I fly this airplane. It was three times almost three times bigger than this Boeing 707, which I was captain of. The thing was huge. Uh all the equipment was different, all the instruments were different, engines were different. There's no way I could fly that thing safely one foot. And it began to dawn on me more and more, well, it had already that it just seemed to me like he was thought, you know, if something happened to someone upstairs, he could drag me up to fly the airplane. Well, I convinced him. So it made me happy to know that uh the guys upstairs at least were relatively safe from that point of view. Finally, all this was finished. And we went back to our seats, and uh uh and the captain reports that oh and oh, and for the first time uh in the flight up to this point, the captain got on the public address system. Now we could hear, he could use his microphone on the public address system, but we could not get into it from down below because they had hacked off all the microphones and everything. And he made the announcement that we were headed for Beirut, Lebanon, and that the airplane was fine, it was completely under control up in the cockpit, not to worry. Uh, he was trying to sue the passengers, uh, or everyone on board for that matter. Into the night we continued.

SPEAKER_16 40:50

What was going through your mind? So they just took the captain just told you that the the plane was headed to towards Beirut, Lebanon. There are two hijackers with handguns and grenades. The pin was pulled. What's going through your mind?

SPEAKER_15 41:08

Nothing good, I'll tell you. Uh, not much could become of such a situation. You know, I could only hope uh we we that that somehow we could, you know, one guy was up, one hijacker was in the cockpit all the time, and it was uh we plotted and plotted on some way to grab this downstairs hijacker and somehow get the grenade away from him and the gun. But uh it was I I vetoed every possibility. It just uh it was just too risky. Uh we just couldn't do it. So we just sat there and waited. And uh finally, um we we overheaded Beirut. Now you might say, Well, how would you know that? Well, Beirut is unmistakable from the air at night, uh, anytime for that matter. Um, and I had flown over uh many times. Uh and oh boy, there we were circling Beirut. And we circled and we circled and we circled for two hours. I have to describe to you what I found out later. Of course, I did not know what I'm going to describe to you now. I knew nothing about at the moment. Uh, but after we I had a chance to talk to Pat Lericks later after this whole ordeal, uh, he explained to me what was happening over Beirut. The Lebanese wanted no, first of all, the Lebanese wanted no part of this unfolding horror show. The hijackers wanted to talk from the airplane to their PFLP representatives. Now, the problem that unfolded here that I found out later and I've read is that these two guys were supposed to have hijacked, been on the L L that was hijacked when we were hijacked. And if you recall, one of the hijackers was a woman by the name of Leela Khalid. She had already hijacked airplanes before and was on board this L L 707, which is one of the hijacked airplanes that they told us about at just after takeoff. Leela Khalid had gotten into a big battle in an airplane in the L Al aircraft uh that she was trying to hijack. She had uh another hijacker with her. There was an armed guard on that airplane that she didn't know about, and they got into a scuffle. This was all we were flying there, or or before just before that. And as I recall reading, the captain rolled the airplane, inverted, and everybody fell to the ceiling, and uh Leela Collie lost control of a hand grenade. The thing did not go off. The pin had been pulled, and it for some reason didn't go off. And her comp her comp. Was shot dead in the airplane. Well, that's the only airplane that made it back. I bring this up because the two hijackers on our airplane were supposed to be on that one. And the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the PLO at Beirut, finally got to the tower, but they couldn't figure out what was going on. What was the 747 doing circling Beirut? They did not know a 747 was going to be hijacked. So they had no idea what was happening. In fact, they weren't, they had to be summoned. Took like an hour to get their representatives to the airport. Now, in the process, the the Lebanese decided to cover the airport with guns and tanks and jeeps and to keep us off. And I remember looking down, seeing that, thinking, oh my God. I mean, you could see the lights all over the runway. It was dark, and we went round and round, round and around for two hours. The battle in the cockpit continued. The hijackers were very wary about the whole thing, didn't know whether to land the airplane. The hijackers on the ground that finally arrived at the airport, or their accomplices, I should say, finally arrived at the airport. They didn't know what was going on, so it was a disaster. Well, few was running low. We had been in the air something like nine hours. And uh finally, Jack Brady, the captain, he finally got on the on the mic and he told them, look, either you guys get all that junk off the runway or we're gonna land anyway. But basically, that was true. However, the hijacker also got on the runway and told them that if they didn't do it, he was gonna blow the airplane up right over the airport. So there's a lot going on in the in the in the in the front end of that 747. A lot of tension. I you you have to hand it to the crew, uh, the flight crew, that they were calm, cool, and collected. And right in the middle of this whole thing, believe it or not, the hijacker up in the cockpit drops the safety pin from the hand grenade. Oh my, onto the floor of the cockpit. Now you got a picture of this. I have a great picture of it in my mind. He the flight engineer later said that he was crawling around on all fours with the hand grenade in one hand, holding the handle so it won't go off. The pistol in the other hand, with a hammer cocked, crawling around on all floors on the on the cockpit floor, trying to look for this safety pin for the hand grenade. Well, it was an in now. I didn't know all this was going on until later, of course. Anyway, finally, uh Captain Pretty convinced everybody that we were running out of fuel. The Lebanese took all their stuff off the runway and we went in for landing with one little caveat. They turned off all the lights. Neat. There wasn't a light on the airport.

SPEAKER_17 47:09

Nothing. Nothing. Well, that's difficult to land a plane.

SPEAKER_15 47:15

Well, the tower told the captain that they would leave the visual approach slope indicator lights on the Vasi so he could follow something. And he probably had the ILS to follow too, instrument landing system. But there were no runway lights, believe me, nothing. No terminal lights, nothing. Zero. Well, I was a little nervous because we saw this all happen. All lights went out, and we're on final approach, thinking, oh my god. And I remember going by some buildings off to my left. Uh, and we were awful close to the buildings on final. Anyway, landed safely. They slammed on the brakes, uh, put it in reverse, and uh, and we were on. Uh and the captain had testified after that that the runway he had plenty of runway to land. Uh, they tried to convince him that the runway was too short because they were working on it, and they gave him some number, I forget what it was. Uh, but he said, now that's plenty to land on, and it was. That 747 has a break-in system that is incredible. Now we're taxiing to the to the uh to a gate. Well, no taxiway lights, nothing. So they are inching along. Of course, we our airplane has its own landing lights, and they're inching along, trying to and and remember they're taxiing a 747, which is so big that you have to run the nose past the end of a taxiway to make a 90-degree turn, so that the whole nose in your view then that is beyond the taxiway for a 90-degree turn. And then when you make the turn, the whole cockpit goes sideways. So without taxiway lights, this is an extremely difficult thing to do. Extremely it's bad enough with taxiway lights during the day, with no taxiway lights at night and only your landing lights. This is an extremely difficult thing to do. Anyway, we're sitting there kind of with our fingers crossed, and we we're heading towards one light, one lamppost with a light bulb going. And as we get a little closer, we see uh, and we could see it out our side because we were approaching it from that direction, and it looks like they were going to make a left turn towards it, and and they did, and finally stopped. Now you got to remember something else. Beirut Lebanon had ever seen a 747, ever. It wasn't equipped to handle one, uh, did not have uh gateways, did not have uh equipment to even get up to the door. Nothing. Uh so anyway, uh we pulled up to this lamppost, the engine shut down, and everything went quiet. Pitch black outside, but I could see in the darkness there were there were men with rifles uh all around in the darkness.

SPEAKER_16 50:21

At that point, did you think that the plane was going to be fired upon and there would be this shootout between the hijackers and presumably this was the Lebanese army?

SPEAKER_15 50:33

You know, that's a good point, but I don't think we thought much about that. We did worry because what ensued was one hijacker always stayed in the carpet, the other one put on a bandana. So, like he didn't want anybody to recognize him. Now, this is the downest thing I ever saw. He got the flight attendants to open L1, that's the first door on the left side of the airplane, and and it happens to be located in first class. And he now we were still kind of behind a curtain, but the curtain was blowing back and forth. When you opened the door, there was a breeze coming in, and we could see him laying on the floor, taking furtive glances out the doorway. Ah, we were trying what's wrong, you know. No, this went on for an hour. Nothing happened for an hour, except and he's been holding that hand grenade the whole time, every single second. Wow, and the gun with the hammer cocked.

SPEAKER_17 51:38

So we're talking nine, ten hours by this point. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_16 51:43

Now we now we're talking 10, 11 hours now, and he's just grasping on to that hand grenade the entire time.

SPEAKER_15 51:51

Every second. Wow. Oh yeah, oh yeah, and and that's what's beginning to worry us. Uh anyway, anyway, two men approached approached the airplane. I could see them coming. We could see out our window, and they were coming. Uh uh, and we wondered about that. And uh the door was open, and they came in. They had a big conflab with the uh with the guys up front, and the and the crew, and this is a little fuzzy in my mind here. The the the the time span, but the crew was ordered to prepare for takeoff. They came down, they were ordered down, they came into Ferris Class and were ordered to uh they wanted to go to Amon Jordan. Here, this this this name came up all the time. Now, what we didn't know is that Amman Jordan meant Dawson Field, which was uh a very primitive airport in Amman where they had already taken the hijacked airplanes. Of course, we didn't know anything about this, and these these guys wanted to go to Amman. Well, pretty pretty, Captain Pretty uh told them this. I I I was a little fuzzy here. They were taken up into the cockpit, and there's a great deal of argument done in the cockpit. Uh, the captain told them there's no way we could go to Oman. We would wreck the airplane. This airplane was much larger than the 707 or DC 8, and uh we would wreck the airplane. This went on for an hour, and finally uh pretty convinced them they couldn't do it. Now it turns out that they decided they'd take the airplane to Cairo. The two the two uh people that got aboard disappeared. And now I'm still under now. You gotta remember, I'm under armed guard all the time. They never let me out of their sight. There was always a gun pointed right at me. All my crew members. Um, I was in first class. I forget where the crew members were. They weren't with me at this point. I think they were in back, but they made sure they kept me under guard, up forward in first class. I'm kind of sitting there concerned and worried. And Augusta Schneider, the in-flight purser, comes up to me and she taps me on the show. She says, Look at the door, look at number L1. What are they doing? I remember there was a just a plain old ladder going up to L1. Uh, they didn't have anything, like a painter's ladder. And uh wow, they were struggling with something, struggling and struggling, and finally you gotta and they put bundles of something on the seat right behind me. And Augusta Schneider says, Paul, what are they doing? Well, it was pretty obvious to me. It was dynamite piles.

SPEAKER_17 54:37

What were you thinking?

SPEAKER_15 54:39

Oh that this was not good. I was hoping that they were gonna let us go. At this point, there's no way to know one way or another. I I was able to talk to the hijacker a little bit. He spoke in broken English, uh, very broken English. I couldn't understand much what he said, but when the explosives came on, I he he he he just kind of clammed up and didn't say much of anything. The next thing that happens is seven men climb aboard the airplane uh with a sack full of 45 caliber pistols, and they traded in, and and GUI and Diop, the two hijackers, traded in their 38s for 45s. Everybody on the airplane got a 45, so now there are about seven, eight, nine, and and a demolition expert came on. So we have about 10 madmen, so to speak, aboard the airplane. All had 45, and two of them had hand grenades. They start cutting up our carpets. These seven guys start cutting up the carpets in the airplane all the way back to the tail with our own machetes. They lay fuses all the way to the tail, branched out to the heads, the the lavatories, and they pile the dynamite and hooked it all up in the heads.

SPEAKER_16 55:58

What were the passengers' reactions at this time?

SPEAKER_15 56:01

You know, surprisingly calm. My problem was uh in addition to dynamite on the airplane, I was wondering what they were going to do with us. It was hard to believe that we were gonna that we might have to take off again with all this aboard. At this point, I didn't know. The passengers were the answer to your question, the passengers were calm, cool, and collected. Strangely enough, they were. Nobody caused any trouble. They were kind of resigned to something. I think that's what happens to you in a situation like that. Well, I wasn't, I was worried, but when they saw all the dynamite, that uh changed the mood a little bit. Uh, but they were still uh no nobody seemed like they want to cause any trouble. They were still quiet. We didn't find out until the last minute that we were going anywhere, and then we were told we were going up to Cairo. I believe the captain made the announcement too, and we taxed out. But this is the first time I thought that we may not get out of this alive. Uh all the men aboard that had fused the airplane departed, except for the demolition, the dynamite expert, the demolition expert, and the two original hijackers. And lo and behold, we crank up the airplane and taxi out in the pitch black again. Now everybody's worried. I'm really worried. Here we are taking off in an airplane with two loose cannons, with guns, hand grenades, an airplane full of dynamite and already and already wired uh for sound, so to speak. So the takeoff, the taxi out was difficult as it was, still no lighting, took off into the pitch black, and and there was a big confusion, as I recall, I've read about, and Pat Levix had told me about a big confusion about where the end of the runaway was, was so difficult to find. Again, no lighting. The the the tower finally cleared us to take off. And his very words were I think clip of 93, you can clear, you're clear to take off and go anywhere you want. With that, we took off. And then we were, of course, en route till we were going to Cairo. And uh given the flight time and the weather and all that, and uh, I I got a hold of one of these hijackers and I said, Well, what are you what are you gonna do with us? He said, Well, we're gonna let let you out. Right now, I think the in-flight person was with me. We had a group of of our of crew members together with him, and and uh we we told them, uh, what are you gonna do? And they said, We're gonna blow up the airplane. I said, Well, it sure looks that way. I said, When? He says, right after landing. Oh. So John Ferrugio, uh, who was of course prime mover for this effort, uh, because he was the in-flight director in Purser. Um he told him, Look, we've got a plan for this. You just can't evacuate an airplane. You have to tell the people where to go, assign them positions, such and such. So, strangely enough, the hijackers said, Okay, do it. And I was allowed to move around the cabin. My flight crew was allowed to move around in the cabin to organize to help the operating crew organize an evacuation. Uh, since we knew that they were going to blow up the airplane right after landing. Well, the night went on, and we find uh and we maybe I should describe that a little bit because it's it's necessary. Um I wound up at uh uh assigning myself or being assigned, I don't remember how we did it, to L2. That's the second door on the left. It's interesting to note that that door is directly in front of number two engine. So if you was if you use an escape slide there, you would hit the ground right in front of number two engine, and all the wheels on that side of the airplane are right there at the wing. Something to think about. L2 wasn't the greatest place to be, however, hey, you can evacuate from anywhere, doesn't matter. We avoided over-wing exits for evacuation. Uh, the airplane is equipped with slides for that. Uh we avoided the overwing exits uh because uh they're a little bit dangerous, and we only had 157, I guess 157, 107, yeah, 157 people. Um so why why pick a dangerous exit? Um so I wound up at L2. I had a flight attendant there who was assigned to sit on the jump seat right there, right at the door, and I sat in a seat right across from her, right there at L2. It's all become very interesting. No one was assigned to evacuate from R2, meaning the exit directly across from us on the right side of the airplane. We had not seen it necessary to use that door. The passengers were all uh divided up such that uh we may have only had maybe 30 or 40 passengers at each emergency exit, and we had them all move up to uh seats uh adjacent to those exits. John Frigo made the the required announcements, uh instructing the passengers what they're what they were gonna have to do. Part of the one of the instructions uh is you you have to you can't go down the slide with your shoes. Uh so you have to leave your shoes in the airplane. And the reason because your heels or your shoes, your rubber heels, or whatever could catch on the slide, and you would trip on the slide and go head over heels down to the concrete below. Now, again, we're talking about a very high distance for a fall. Okay, so we get everything squared away, and the night bores on, and finally um, we're ready to go. And uh and I've assumed my position, we've all assumed them. The passengers are where they belong. Uh, we overhead the destination and start circling again.

SPEAKER_16 1:02:57

Cairo, Egypt. So at this point, did you feel that there was hope that you and your passengers were gonna make it out alive?

SPEAKER_15 1:03:06

Yes, there was hope. Definitely, and that's what got everybody, kept everybody in a fairly good mood, so to speak. We did definitely think, I remember this clearly, that they were gonna let us out. These guys were not vindictive, they were not brutal. Uh they had hijacked us, but they weren't they they treated everybody with respect, interestingly enough. Uh, you read about stuff going on today, you don't see anything like that anymore. But anyway, there was there we did indeed be real uh believe that we were going to be allowed to evacuate the airplane after it stopped on the runway. Yes.

SPEAKER_16 1:03:54

We have a clip from PBS series called American Experience Hijacked. The first voice you hear is flight director John Ferruccio. The second voice is first officer Levix. Let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_12 1:04:10

There was still one more hijacked plane in the air, Pan Am Flight 93. Its pilot, Captain John Pritty, convinced the hijackers that the 747 was too big to land in the desert. After refueling in Beirut, the plane headed towards Cairo.

SPEAKER_20 1:04:26

We took off out of Beirut, and shortly after that, I saw the demolition individual with the suitcase, and he was wiring up the airplane with dynamite. And I said to him, What's going to happen to this airplane? He says, What do you care about this imperialistic airplane? I said, What about my imperialistic ass and my passengers?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

We had to circle. The hijackers would look out the window and they would confirm, yes, indeed, this is Cairo, they could tell even though it was nighttime.

SPEAKER_20 1:05:12

And I said to all the attendants, now hear this and hear it good. When this airplane comes to a complete stop in Cairo, which was at destination point, I says, Don't wait for me, don't wait for the captain, and don't wait for Jesus Christ. We're going to evacuate the airplane like right now. I looked around and saw this gentleman like he was just on the back as we were descending.

SPEAKER_12 1:05:45

Flight Director John Ferruccio hurriedly gave evacuation instructions, which one of the passengers managed to record on the tape deck.

SPEAKER_16 1:06:16

It's amazing one of the passengers was able to record that announcement. Your reaction to that clip, sir.

SPEAKER_15 1:06:25

Um my reaction is uh amazement, really, that he had the presence of mind to do it to begin with. Uh you know, you could have cut the tension with a machete at this point. I guess maybe we should discuss what went on during final approach. That's probably since we went round and round for a long time, just about an hour, and finally in the cockpit, uh the the the crew members had to convince the hijackers that they were indeed where they thought they were. And so then uh the cockpit crew was allowed to square away and and begin an approach. I was at L2, and uh as I mentioned before, and that flight attendant was sitting on the jump seat, and we touched down, and we touched down, we rolled, and we rolled, and we kept rolling. There was a whole bunch of commotion in the back. Uh I remember we continue to roll, continue to roll, and oh my gosh, I'm waiting to for this thing to stop so we can evacuate. We know that they're gonna blow up the airplane. I I I don't exactly know how they're they're doing this, but then the uh we we look up and somebody screams out, they're all gone. I said, What do you mean they're all gone? I got up. Oh, by this time I'm on my knees looking out the porthole in the door, waiting for the airplane to slow down so that we can uh yank on the the door handle and and and blow the chutes out, the evacuation chutes after the door opens, as the door opens. Well, come to find out, when I stuck my head up and looked aft, there was nobody there. Everybody was gone, except about maybe 10 people left at my door, and and some of them were peeling off and leaving. And I'm wondering, what's going on? Well, with now we're rolling. Now, with this, the flight attendant opens the door. Oh boy, we're rolling. The the the chute blasts out. You can't believe that the sight is incredible. Uh a double row chute blasts out, talcum powder all over the place. They it just the whole place clouds up uh because that's how they pack them. Uh and the chute drops down and starts to be dragged by the airplane as we're moving and gets sucked towards number two engine. Well, I see this, realize there's no way you can't. It's sure death. You're either going to be sucked into number two engine or you're gonna be rolled over by the eight wheels on that side, right next to the engine. So I grabbed it. There are two handles on each side of the door, and I grabbed them and I screamed, Don't push, you can't, we can't get out. And everybody's screaming, get out of the way, we want to get out. And and well, it was bedlam. Uh well, I wouldn't let anybody out because I knew it was certain death. Just there's no question about it. Well, right then, uh John Ferruggio, I I don't know how he wound up right there, but he must have been moving around. But anyway, he spotted what was going on and realized that the importance of doing something about that. So we grabbed the bullhorn, which he probably had in his hand anyway, ran over to the stairwell and screamed up to the cockpit to stop the airplane that we were evacuating. Well, the guys upstairs did not know we were evacuated, and so they slammed on the brakes and and stopped. That's when I went out the door, and they killed the engines. I didn't move till they killed the engines. They slammed on the brakes and shut down the engines, and I went out the door into the chute since I was the first one.

SPEAKER_16 1:10:19

And did you know that the the fuses were lit at the back of the airplane at this time?

SPEAKER_15 1:10:25

No, no, no. So I get to the now. First of all, you got to understand the chute is completely awry, uh askew. Uh, and I kind of hand over hand go down the thing, uh, so I don't get hurt, long way down, and and and right the thing just as the shooting started. Shooting, why and then here come the passengers down the chute. I don't know how many, my guess is about 10. Anyway, they come down and disappear into the darkness. And now I hear bullets smacking into the engine right right next to me and smacking into the fuselage right next to me. So I dove under number two engine, thinking, geez, I'm gonna get shot. And these were tracers. You could see them hit the airplane wheels overhead and go into the airplane and smack it. Whoa, bad scene. Um, I dove under number two engine. Oh, and right then the whole cockpit blew off right while I was laying there. Well, it was the darnest thing you ever saw. Flames. Uh I actually could hear uh oxygen bottles, uh, seats of parts of the whole nose came crashing down right next to me. I mean, right next to me, like within 10 feet. But I was still protected on the number two engine. And then the shooting increased more machine gun fire. But after the cockpit blew off, I realized I gotta get out of here. The rest of the next thing's going up. So I started to run. And this, mind you, it's pitch black. And now when the cockpit blew off, all the lights on the airplane went out too, because it destroyed the whole electrical system of the airplane. So now it's pitch black again, and I start running. Uh, maybe that was good. Who knows? But machine gun uh tracers still going overhead. Um, I ran like heck down a taxiway. I f it had blue lights. I mean, here we had our lighting for landing at uh there in Cairo, and so I ran down a taxiway, and sure enough, believe it or not, there's a bus at the end of uh maybe uh I would guess 100 yards from the airplane, maybe not quite that much, maybe 80 yards from the airplane. I jump on the bus, and why not? Said here's pretty and Levix and half the crew and pass some passengers all laying on the floor because there's still shooting going on. Oh, so I lay right down next to Pat, and we we passed some right remark about having some wild times, but decided to take the cake, and with that, the whole tail blows off the airplane. Uh, in one, just as if you took a machete and sliced that thing right off, it blew clean right off the airplane, went right into the air and came down in a crumpling heat. And right then, believe it or not, one of the hijackers jumps on the on the bus. And he's no longer has his hand grenade because it appeared to me after all this that he and his buddies, that's how they blew off the cockpit with three hand grenades. So he didn't have his because he had used it, but he still had his gun. And on the bus, another bus, uh, but mind you, it's dark, pitch black, not any lighting on the bus, but there's a uh uh a guard, a soldier, on on the bus with a bayonet rifle, and he and we obvious immediately told him who this guy was, and so he put the bayonet up right up to his throat, and he coughed up the gun and we had him. And then the rest of the airplane blew up humongous explosion. Then we we got the driver to drive us to the terminal, not too far from the terminal, maybe five-minute drive on the bus, and uh we got there, and um we had passengers on the bus, uh, but we realized that there were a whole bunch of passengers missing. Whoa, uh maybe half of them. Um this was a big worry. Um the airplane wasn't was still it burned for hours and hours and hours, but that flame and hulk was in the distance. Um, we wonder what happened to the passengers. Well, I can tell you what happened to the passengers, uh, which we learned later. Um they never showed up for an hour. Uh the passengers will get off on the starboard side of the airplane. Uh well, we'll put it this way. All the passengers behind me got off when the airplane was rolling. Now just think about that. Pitch black slides turned upside down because we were rolling, jet blasts from these four humongous engines blowing the slides over, and passengers trying to use them in the pitch black, diving out of the airplane onto these slides and falling most of the way to the tax to the uh concrete of the runway below. Uh, and then scrambling as fast as they could away from the airplane because they knew the thing was going to blow up any second. Finally got to the airplane about an hour after we got to the terminal an hour after we arrived there. There were one one flight attendant had hit face first and smashed her face. We had a couple of people with broken bones and one broken hip, uh, and all kinds of lacerations and whatnot. Well, you can imagine jumping out of an airplane that's rolling behind jet engines in the middle of the night. After things calmed down a little bit, I got one flight attendant aside and we were discussing the whole thing. And and I said, You know, I I why did why did everybody get out? She said, What do you mean? Why did we get out? I said, Yeah, why did you get out while we were rolling? I said, I well, she said, Didn't you didn't you know? I said, No, what? She said, They lit the fuse in the air. I said, You gotta be kidding me. No, she says, the few you you didn't smell it? I said, No, she says it smelled, you could smell like fireworks, and she says, You couldn't hear it. She says, You could actually hear the fuse burning and all that din. And she said, Yes. Well, I didn't hear it and I didn't smell it because I was way too far forward, and the fuse hadn't gotten to us yet as it was burning its way through economy class, heading towards us. Now, this is a very interesting point because uh there's no way we could have gotten out of the airplane, whether that we knew the fuse was burning or not. We were gonna get killed one way or another. We're either gonna get rolled over by the airplane jumping out of L2 into the pitch black right in front of those that engine and the wheels, or we didn't know the fuse was heading towards us.

SPEAKER_17 1:17:48

Wow. It's amazing that no one was killed. Oh, it's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_15 1:17:54

Uh to to to kind of um wrap it all up. Um believe it or not, uh well everybody finally showed up, and of course we had ambulances, uh they brought the folks to the hospital. Uh the three hijackers, yeah. We must get into this. The three hijackers were indeed captured. Uh Jack Priddy and Pat Levix were brought to wherever they were confined for identification purposes. In the terminal, they gave everybody a quart of beer, believe it or not. Now, I was ready to have a beer at this point, and so was everybody else.

SPEAKER_16 1:18:39

Well, you were off duty and you certainly earned it.

unknown 1:18:42

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_15 1:18:43

I was ready for a beer, and uh, every passenger got one, all the crew members, and we're all sitting around discussing this. And this is all during the time passengers are stumbling in from the darkness from our airplane. After hours, uh they turned the lights down, and all the passengers and crew uh slept on the floor for the night. Uh, they didn't have any place for us to go. Uh, nobody wanted to go anywhere. Uh, so we all slept on the floor. And the next morning, I'll never forget this, as long as I live, Pat Levix woke me up. This must have been about five in the morning. He says, Uh, you gotta come with me. I gotta show you something. All right, so I followed Pat. We went into the ladies' bathroom, climbed up on top of a of a radiator, believe it or not, and to get a peek out the window to see our airplane there in the middle of the runway, completely demolished, charred, and still smoking.

SPEAKER_16 1:19:47

And it was a brand new airplane, right?

SPEAKER_15 1:19:49

Brand new airplane that had fewer than 500 hours on the airframe.

unknown 1:19:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_15 1:19:54

Pan Am sent in an airplane the next day at 707 to pick us up and uh bring us through Rome to New York. Uh, that started a whole string of events. You can well imagine we had to go to court a couple of times. Uh, the FAA, the Pan Am, the CAB, you name it, was in on it asking questions. We all had to testify because, of course, you know, the insurance companies were involved, and everybody wanted to know who was going to pay what, obviously. And that basically is how it ended up.

SPEAKER_16 1:20:28

That was an incredible story. Thank you so much for sharing. Wow, thank you. So, when you look back at the history of Pan Am and you look at the Pan Am Museum in Long on Long Island, New York, what message do you have for our listeners and also for younger people that may not have had the privilege to fly on Pan American? What message do you have for them?

SPEAKER_15 1:20:58

Well, first of all, Pan American was held in my heart. Number one, always has been, always will be. Now I have to admit that I have some love for United too. But I got my start at Pan Am. I loved it there. The people where there were the the greatest, the friendliest, the most helpful. The museum, uh, I was delighted to to to uh learn that uh that there was such a thing. And uh uh and I and as you can see, I I will help do my part in in continuing interest in the museum.

SPEAKER_16 1:21:48

Well, thank you very much for your time, sir. Um I know some of the recollections of the hijacking was difficult to share, and uh we definitely appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_15 1:22:00

You're welcome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_16 1:22:10

Pan Am was a pioneer in air travel and still stands as one of the most iconic and innovative airlines in aviation history. That legacy lives on at the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York, where you can explore the rich history of the aircraft and individuals at the heart of the company known as the world's most experienced airline. For more information about the Pan Am Museum, check out our website at www.thepanammuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. As was once a tagline in one of our commercials, we would greatly appreciate your support to help the Pan Am Museum continue making the going great. We want to hear from you. If you have a question for us or want to share your story, our email address is podcast at the Panamuseum.org. And with that, we're going to close out this episode with a Pan Am song from 1979 called We Fly the World the Way the World Wants to Fly. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan Am.

SPEAKER_10 1:23:30

Every day.