Dawson's Field hijackings


In September 1970, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked four airliners bound for New York City and one for London. Three aircraft were forced to land at Dawson Field, a remote desert airstrip near Zarqa, Jordan, formerly Royal Air Force Station Zarqa, which then became PFLP's "Revolutionary Airport". By the end of the incident, one hijacker had been killed and one injury reported. This was the second instance of mass aircraft hijacking, after three aircraft from communist Czechoslovakia were hijacked and taken to Munich, West Germany, in 1950.
On 6 September, TWA Flight 741 from Frankfurt and Swissair Flight 100 from Zürich were forced to land at Dawson's Field. On the same day, the hijacking of El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam was foiled: hijacker Patrick Argüello was shot and killed, and his partner Leila Khaled was subdued and handed over to British authorities in London. Two PFLP hijackers, who were prevented from boarding the El Al flight, hijacked instead Pan Am Flight 93, a Boeing 747, diverting the large aircraft first to Beirut and then to Cairo, rather than to the small Jordanian airstrip. On 9 September, a fifth aircraft, BOAC Flight 775, a Vickers VC10 coming from Bahrain, was hijacked by a PFLP sympathizer and taken to Dawson's Field in order to pressure the British to free Khaled.
While the majority of the 310 hostages were transferred to Amman and freed on 11 September, the PFLP segregated the flight crews and Jewish passengers, keeping the 56 Jewish hostages in custody, while releasing the non-Jews. Six hostages were kept because they were men and American citizens, not necessarily Jews: Robert Norman Schwartz, a U.S. Defense Department researcher stationed in Thailand; James Lee Woods, Schwartz's assistant and security detail; Gerald Berkowitz, an American-born Jew and college chemistry professor; Rabbi Avraham Harari-Raful and his brother Rabbi Yosef Harari-Raful, two Sephardi Brooklyn school teachers; and John Hollingsworth, a U.S. State Department employee. Schwartz, whose father was Jewish, was a convert to Catholicism. On 12 September, prior to their announced deadline, the PFLP used explosives to destroy the empty planes, as they anticipated a counterstrike.
The PFLP's exploitation of Jordanian territory was an example of the increasingly autonomous Arab Palestinian activity within the Kingdom of Jordan – a serious challenge to the Hashemite monarchy of King Hussein. Hussein declared martial law on 16 September and from 17 to 27 September his forces deployed into Palestinian-controlled areas in what became known as Black September in Jordan, nearly triggering a regional war involving Syria, Iraq, and Israel.
A swift Jordanian victory, however, enabled a 30 September deal in which the remaining PFLP hostages were released in exchange for Khaled and three PFLP members in a Swiss prison.

Hijackings

El Al Flight 219

El Al Flight 219, a Boeing 707-458 registered as with serial number 18071, originated in Tel Aviv, Israel, and was headed to New York City. It had 138 passengers and 10 crew members aboard. It stopped in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and was hijacked shortly after it took off from there by Patrick Argüello, a Nicaraguan American, and Leila Khaled, a Palestinian.
The original plan was to have four hijackers aboard this flight, but two were prevented from boarding in Amsterdam by Israeli security—these two conspirators, traveling under Senegalese passports with consecutive numbers, were prevented from flying on El Al on 6 September. They purchased first-class tickets on Pan Am Flight 93 and hijacked that flight instead.
Posing as a married couple, Argüello and Khaled boarded the plane using Honduran passports—having passed through a security check of their luggage—and were seated in the second row of tourist class. Once the plane was approaching the British coast, they drew their guns and grenades and approached the cockpit, demanding entrance. According to Khaled, in an interview in 2000,
So half an hour we had to move. We stood up. I had my two hand grenades and I showed everybody I was taking the pins out with my teeth. Patrick stood up. We heard shooting just the same minute and when we crossed the first class, people were shouting but I didn't see who was shooting because it was behind us. So Patrick told me "go forward I protect your back." So I went and then he found a hostess and she was going to catch me round the legs. So I rushed, reached to the cockpit, it was closed. So I was screaming "open the door." Then the hostess came; she said "she has two hand grenades," but they did not open and suddenly I was threatening to blow up the plane. I was saying "I will count and if you don't open I will blow up the plane."

After being informed by intercom that a hijacking was in progress, Captain Uri Bar-Lev, decided not to accede to their demands:
I decided that we were not going to be hijacked. The security guy was sitting here ready to jump. I told him that I was going to put the plane into negative-G mode. Everyone would fall. When you put the plane into negative, it's like being in a falling elevator. Instead of the plane flying this way, it dives and everyone who is standing falls down.

Bar Lev put the plane into a steep nosedive which threw the two hijackers off-balance. Argüello reportedly threw his sole grenade down the airliner aisle, but it failed to explode, and he was hit over the head with a bottle of whiskey by a passenger after he drew his pistol. Argüello shot steward Shlomo Vider and according to the passengers and Israeli security personnel, was then shot by a sky marshal. His accomplice Khaled was subdued by security and passengers, while the plane made an emergency landing at London Heathrow Airport; she then claimed that Argüello was shot four times in the back after he and Khaled failed to hijack the airplane. Vider underwent emergency surgery and recovered from his wounds; Argüello died in the ambulance taking both him and Khaled to Hillingdon Hospital. Khaled was then arrested by British police.

Nationalities on Flight 219

TWA Flight 741

TWA Flight 741, a Boeing 707-331B registered as with serial number 18917, was a round-the-world flight carrying 144 passengers and a crew of 11. The flight on this day was flying from Tel Aviv to Athens, Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, and then to New York City, and was hijacked over Belgium on the Frankfurt-New York leg. It was crewed by Captain Carroll D. Woods, First Officer Jim Majer and Flight Engineer Al Kiburis.
Flight 741's purser, Rudi Swinkles, recalled seeing a passenger running toward first class. Assuming it was an angry husband chasing his wife, Swinkles ran after him. The hijackers were at the cockpit door, ordering a flight attendant to open the door. The male hijacker turned around, pointing a nickel-plated.38 revolver and a hand grenade at Swinkles and yelled "Get back! Get back!" Swinkles dove behind the bulkhead first class divider.
Hijackers gained control of the cockpit. The male hijacker kept his revolver pointed at Majer until the plane landed at Dawson's Field, saying "I want you to turn this plane around." The female hijacker stated on the intercom, "This is your new captain speaking. This flight has been taken over by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. We will take you to a friendly country with friendly people." The female hijacker also ordered everyone in first class to move back to coach.
It landed at Dawson's Field in Jordan at 6:45 p.m. local time.
Yitzchak Hutner was one of the passengers.
Martha Hodes, an American then 12 who was on this flight with her 13-year-old sister, published her account of the hijacking in 2023. Her book is entitled My Hijacking.

Nationalities on Flight 741

Swissair Flight 100

Swissair Flight 100, a Douglas DC-8-53 registered as HB-IDD and serial number 45656, named Nidwalden, built in 1963, was carrying 145 passengers and 12 crew members from Zürich-Kloten Airport, Switzerland, to John F. Kennedy International Airport, United States. The aircraft was hijacked over France minutes after the TWA flight. A male and a female seized the plane, one of them carrying a silver revolver. An announcement was made over the intercom that the plane had been taken over by the PFLP as it was diverted to Dawson's Field, increasing the hostage number to 306 hostages.
When all the non-Israeli and non-Jewish passengers and crew were released, First Officer Horst Jerosch remained as a captive.

Nationalities on Flight 100

NationalityPassengersCrewTotal
France

Pan Am Flight 93

Pan Am Flight 93, a Boeing 747-121 registered as with serial number 19656, named Clipper Fortune, was carrying 152 passengers and 17 crew, of which 85 were US citizens. The flight originated from Brussels, Belgium, to New York, with a stopover in Amsterdam. The two hijackers bumped from the El Al flight boarded and hijacked this flight as a target of opportunity.
Flight director John Ferruggio recalled,
We were ready for take off in Amsterdam, and the aircraft came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the runway. And Captain Priddy called me up into the cockpit and says, "I'd like to have a word with you." I went up to the cockpit, and he says, "We have two passengers by the name of Diop and Gueye." He says, "Go down and try to find them in the manifest, because I would like to have a word with them."... So Captain Priddy sat them down at these two seats over here. He gave them a pretty good pat. They had a Styrofoam container in their groin area where they carried the grenade, and the 25-Cal. pistols. But this we found out much later.

The plane first landed in Beirut, where it refueled and picked up several associates of the hijackers, along with enough explosives to destroy the entire plane. It then landed in Cairo after uncertainty whether the Dawson's Field airport could handle the size of the new Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Flight director John Ferruggio, who led the plane's evacuation, is credited with saving the plane's passengers and crew. The plane was blown up at Cairo seconds after it had been evacuated. This was the first hull loss of a Boeing 747. An audio recording of Feruggio's landing instructions to passengers was made by one of them and can be heard in a National Public Radio report. The hijackers were arrested by Egyptian police.