Word: planes
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Already the postmortems were under way in Malta, Cairo and various Western capitals. Malta's Prime Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici defended his country's long-standing policy of refusing to refuel a hijacked plane unless terrorists first released all passengers aboard. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accused the hijackers of being members of a Palestinian terrorist group opposed to Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and closely aligned with Mubarak's enemy, Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi. Though Mubarak did not mention the group by name, he seemed to be referring to the Abu Nidal faction, which has previously taken responsibility...
...liner Achille Lauro, in which one passenger was killed. This time he moved briskly, sending a team of 80 specially trained commandos to Malta even as he placed his armed forces on alert and bolstered his defenses along the Libyan border. He authorized the commando operation only after the plane's captain, Hani Galal, told the tower at Valletta: "Please do something. They're going to kill...
...Calif. But no fewer than 44 had died from burns and smoke inhalation. Of the three to five terrorists on board, one or two survived. Experts in Malta debated whether the majority of deaths had been caused by the explosives detonated by the Egyptians in gaining entrance to the plane or by the grenades thrown by the hijackers when they realized that a rescue operation was under way. In truth, it hardly mattered, because the events of terrorism, attempted rescue and death had been so inextricably bound together. "Dear friends," Captain Galal said mournfully after it was all over...
Twenty-two minutes after takeoff, as the aircraft passed over the Greek island of Milos, a well-dressed young man rose from his seat near the front of the plane, drew a pistol from a plastic bag and pointed it at crew members who were distributing newspapers and magazines. Another man, seated in the rear section, jumped into the aisle and shouted, "Don't move!" In the cockpit, a third man shoved the barrel of a pistol against the captain's head. The terrorists in the cabin instructed all passengers to surrender their passports. One of the men was particularly...
...Egyptian security agent, Medhat Mustafa Kamal. The agent produced a pistol and shot and killed the hijacker. In the ensuing fire fight, the other hijackers shot and wounded the agent and two stewardesses. Panicked, the passengers dived for cover. The shots pierced the fuselage, causing the plane to lose pressure. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling, and Captain Galal began an emergency descent from 35,000 ft. to 14,000 ft. One of the terrorists ordered him to fly to Libya, but Galal convinced him that, with the plane damaged and fuel limited, it was unsafe to attempt...