Word: hijacks
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Only a few at the topmost levels of U.S. policymaking had foreseen how Veliotes would get his wish. More than 30 hours after the seagoing hijack drama had ended, a flight of four F-14 Tomcat fighter-interceptors from the aircraft carrier Saratoga pulled alongside a chartered EgyptAir Boeing 737 jetliner just south of the Mediterranean island of Crete. The Egyptian aircraft had left Cairo's Al Maza military airport 1 hour and 45 minutes earlier, apparently headed for Tunis. Aboard it were the hijackers, accompanied by two representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a number of Egyptian diplomats...
...that Weir might have been held for a time in Iran. To that, U.S. spokesmen responded with a frosty "No comment." But top Administration officials clearly indicated that Syria had no part in Weir's release, despite the prominent role Damascus played in securing the freedom of the TWA hijack victims. A senior State Department official may also have pointed indirectly to Iran when he said the U.S. had offered to help ease the isolation of countries "now outside the pale of international behavior" if the hostages were returned...
According to one hostage, the hijackers acted "like mental cases," demanding at different times a helicopter, millions of dollars, automatic weapons and flight plans for Europe and the Middle East. Following the plane to Curaçao was a team of commandos from Venezuela. During the 17 hours the plane sat on the runway, while passengers sweltered inside, a team of anti-hijack specialists from the U.S. arrived. In the dark hours of Tuesday morning, a commando crept under the plane and deflated one of its tires; the other three tires were then shot out, immobilizing the aircraft...
...Flamingo Road among other places. But in Time Bomb, an NBC-TV movie that will be aired later this month, Morgan Fairchild, 34, will add a more literal meaning to her reputation as a mankiller. Fairchild plays the leader of a gang of gun-toting terrorists who attempt to hijack a truckload of weapons-grade plutonium in Texas. "I hope it doesn't seem too Hollywood," Fairchild says. "I have this little porcelain face, and short of taking a hammer to it, there's nothing you can do." Still, the 100-lb. beauty says that...
...episode was the most violent hijacking in Soviet aviation history, though by no means the first. Since 1970,14 cases of air piracy have been reported in the Soviet Union. In 1973, after a rash of hijack attempts, authorities declared that plane seizures resulting in loss of life were punishable by death. Neither that penalty nor the rigorous security checks to be found at every Soviet airport were sufficient to deter the Georgian wedding party. Alarmed Soviet officials launched a high-level investigation into the case. No mention of the event appeared in the Soviet national press...