Word: tarmac
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Pope John Paul II, visibly tired after a 14-hour flight and using a cane on the tarmac, arrived in Manila as a surging sea of a million Filipinos welcomed him to the only predominantly Roman Catholic country on his grueling, four-nation tour of Southeast Asia. The visit entailed some personal risk, as Filipino authorities had warned of a possible terrorist attack on airlines during the pontiff's visit. (Last week, they arrested a man after finding bomb-making materials in a nearby apartment.) Today, police arrested a man found carrying a pistol along the papal route, deployed bomb...
...chilling scenario -- and one that was averted only because commandos of the French gendarmerie stormed the Air France jetliner last week on the tarmac of Marseilles' Marignane Airport, killing the four hijackers in a brisk firefight and freeing the plane's 173 passengers and crew. Miraculously, none of the rescuers or hostages perished during the assault. Thirteen passengers, three crew members and nine policemen were wounded, only one seriously, in one of the most successful antiterrorist operations in aviation history...
...allow the plane to depart, they will kill me." The French wanted the ramp pulled back. "The Algerians said, 'No, no, we are sure they are bluffing,' " a French diplomat recalled. "Five minutes later, the hijackers killed the cook and threw his body on the tarmac...
...gendarmes prepared to make their move, the Airbus started its engines at 4:45 p.m., taxied slowly across the tarmac and stopped within 10 feet of the main terminal. Yahia now issued his final ultimatum: If the plane did not take off by 5 p.m., he said, "we will take action." At 5:08, one of the terrorists fired two shots at the control tower, shattering its bay window. Pasqua immediately gave the green light for the gendarmes' attack...
Simultaneously, the two other teams entered through the two rear doors, deploying escape chutes and herding passengers out the emergency exits. Paratroopers met them on the tarmac and instructed them to crawl toward the terminal, where the wounded were given emergency treatment, mostly for scrapes and bruises. The rear cabin was filled with smoke, riddled with stray gunfire and rocked by grenade blasts. "The bullets were flying all around me," recounted one passenger, an Algerian merchant marine captain. "We expected death, we were waiting for the explosion," said another Algerian passenger, Ali Kalak. "We never thought there would be such...