Word: oquendo
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...forward in the cockpit, Wilfredo Roman Oquendo, 36, a naturalized U.S. citizen, had made an abrupt transformation from the shy Miami hotel waiter who had meekly bought a ticket to Tampa. Suddenly he was the same snarling Cuban secret policeman he had been in pre-Batista days; suddenly he was fulfilling his role as a hotheaded member of Fidel Castro's July 26 Movement. He pointed a big, Luger-type pistol at Pilot William E. Buchanan. 40, and snapped: "Turn this airplane around." Unruffled, Buchanan banked the $3,500,000 ship into a wide turn calculated to alert...
Hotheaded Kids. In the cockpit, Oquendo braced himself against the closed door, tapped Flight Engineer Philip Knudsen menacingly with his gun whenever anyone reached for a switch without explanation. Pilot Buchanan nursed a double worry: the Cuban air force might attack because he was out of the normal Havana approach corridor ("They have some hot airplanes there with hotheaded kids flying them," he reported later), and the gunman might start shooting if any passengers tried to storm the door. He got Oquendo's permission to make one laconic announcement on the plane's public-address system: "Ladies...
...Buchanan and Yandell stalled, throwing switches and circuit breakers wildly, making sure the Cubans would have a rough time refiring the engines. "That system is a mess now," says Buchanan. "I pity the poor guy who has to try to start her up. He'll go crazy." Pirate Oquendo had only one terse explanation for the puzzled airport guards: "They have three of our airplanes. Here...
Riding Shotgun. The U.S. State Department asked the Swiss embassy in Havana to protest Castro's refusal to release the big plane, but got no answer. The FBI charged the out-of-reach Oquendo with four offenses, including kidnaping-punishable by life imprisonment. New York police revealed a Cuban plot to hijack five more planes. Detectives studied passenger lists at air terminals, kept a sharp eye on boarding Latin Americans. Kentucky's Representative Frank Chelf introduced a bill to permit civilian crews to "ride shotgun" in airliner cockpits equipped with one-way glass to observe passengers. FAA Administrator...