Hezbollah (14 page)

Airport employees, the CIA noted, did not try to keep terrorists out of the facility. In fact, sympathetic workers helped terrorists pass through the airport covertly. “Most of the airport employees are Shias,” the CIA reported, “and there is evidence that customs clerks, porters, and taxicab drivers constitute a network of collaborators for Shia groups hoping to kidnap foreigners or Lebanese notables going to or from the airport.”
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Against this background Derickson and everyone else aboard flight 847 must have taken little comfort from the fact that the flight to Rome had finally landed—in Beirut.

Fearing an ambush, the hijackers initially refused to allow the airplane to taxi to a refueling area. When a truck came onto the runway to lead the plane to the refueling area, one of the hijackers leaned out of the cockpit window and waved his gun until the truck drove off. Once the pilot explained they could not refuel—and therefore not fly on to Algeria, as the hijackers demanded—without taxiing to the refueling area, the hijackers relented. Even so, as the captain guided the plane down the runway, a hijacker held his cocked pistol to the captain’s head. In his other hand he held a hand grenade with its pin pulled, right in front of the pilot’s face, blocking his view of the runway.
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Relieved to have reached the refueling area safely despite the distractions, the pilot parked the aircraft and waited for someone to refuel to plane. But the wait enraged the hijackers, who took their anger out on Robert Stethem. “The sounds of the blows were sickening,” the pilot later recalled. As the hijackers beat Stethem with the armrest, the first officer radioed to the tower: “They’re beating the passengers! We demand fuel!” Then another voice added, in broken English, “The plane is booby-trapped. If anyone approaches, we will blow it up. Either refueling the plane or blowing it up. No alternative.” Though it still took some time, a crew eventually arrived and refueled the plane. When Hamadi left the cockpit to check on conditions in the cabin, Uli Derickson asked him in German to release the women and children. Seventeen women and two children were freed, and then the plane took off for Algiers, some four hours away.
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Once the plane was in the air, the hijackers dragged Stethem back into the first-class cabin, where Suggs was still sitting. Suggs saw that Stethem was in bad shape, leaning his head, which was covered in blood from a wound on the side of his head against the wall. He begged for someone to untie his hands, saying the pain was unbearable. Looking over, Hamadi said, “Let the American pig suffer!” Uli Derickson untied him anyway and moved him into the coach-class section.
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As the plane approached Algeria, the hijackers took over the radio and began to make long, impassioned speeches to authorities on the ground. From the hijackers’ angry reactions, it appeared they were not getting what they wanted. As in Beirut,
Algiers flight controllers insisted the airport was closed. “We are going to land, we have no choice,” the first officer replied. “They have told us they will blow up the airplane if we do not land in Algiers!” Besides, the plane lacked enough fuel to fly anywhere else. When a runway was opened for the flight, it was surrounded by Algerian military personnel and armored vehicles.
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To compel Algerian authorities to approach the plane and negotiate over their demands, the hijackers threatened to start shooting passengers. For the next few hours the hijackers negotiated with airport officials, giving the crew a first glimpse of their demands: the release of Lebanese Shi’a prisoners, including 766 prisoners in Israel, two arrested in Spain in September 1984 after attempting to assassinate a Libyan diplomat, and the Kuwait 17.
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But at that moment, what the hijackers wanted more than anything else was more fuel, though they did not yet know where they wanted to fly next.
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Negotiations, conducted mostly through the cockpit window, apparently were not going well because the hijackers dragged another passenger, Maj. Kurt Carlson, US Army Reserve, into the first-class section and started beating him as well in order to bargain for fuel. “They’re beating and killing Americans. We need fuel right now,” the pilot pleaded. Hamadi yelled out the window, “Ten minutes, not more, and one American will die.”
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When he first discovered Carlson was traveling on an official US government passport, Hamadi pointed his weapon at Carlson’s face, yelling, “CIA, FBI!” Seeking to defuse the matter, Uli Derickson explained that he was just a reserve officer returning from a one-week civil engineering assignment in Egypt. Yet needing leverage, the hijackers continued abusing Carlson, who was already blindfolded with a bandana reeking of vomit, his hands tied behind his back. They proceeded to shove him just inside the cockpit and kick and beat him with a steel pipe. Over and over they screamed, “One American must die!” As horrible as Carlson’s screams were, the pilot held the microphone close so that the control tower would hear and take the hijackers seriously. For about ninety minutes the beating of Carlson continued, until finally the pilot announced a fuel truck was coming.
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Events then veered briefly into the absurd. When the fuel truck arrived, the driver shouted something toward the cockpit window. “I think this guy is asking for a credit card,” an exasperated crew member exclaimed. Not sure he heard correctly, the pilot asked, “You mean he wants us to pay for fuel so we can hijack ourselves?” Derickson took out her purse, mumbling as she removed her wallet, “He wants a credit card.” Once the driver had her card he began pumping to the tune of $6,000. Meanwhile the hijackers brought Carlson back to his seat and resumed beating Robert Stethem. They left him unconscious in the doorway but let an additional twenty-one women and children deplane in Algiers.
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The flight took off, and only then was the crew told they were heading back to Beirut. By now it was clear to the captain: “This was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill hijacking. We were being held for ransom.”
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A flight that was never intended to leave Europe was now bouncing around the Middle East, the latest in a growing trend of Middle East terrorism spilling over into Europe.

“International terrorists had a banner year in 1985,” the State Department conceded in its annual terrorism report, which included the hijacking of flight 847. Terrorists’ focus on softer, civilian targets, and international transportation in particular, “gave pause to international travelers worldwide who feared the increasingly indiscriminate nature of international terrorism.” Not only had international terrorist incidents risen by 30 percent since the previous year, but attacks by Middle Eastern terrorists accounted for nearly 60 percent of all attacks in 1985. And whereas most attacks by Western European terrorists were designed to avoid casualties, the State Department reported, attacks by Middle Eastern groups were frequently intended to cause maximum casualties. It was therefore all the more disconcerting that Middle Eastern terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, increased their level of activity abroad—especially in Europe—in 1985.
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Several factors help explain the Middle Eastern terrorist spillover into Europe, including the desire by Middle Eastern terrorists to gain the release of comrades jailed in European countries. But operationally, too, Europe made for an attractive venue. Few travel restrictions existed at the time among European countries, and some had special arrangements with Middle Eastern countries to facilitate guest workers. While Western installations were well protected in the Middle East, security was still relatively lax back home in Europe, where targets abounded. And the open nature of European society made operating there easy. Finally, the State Department noted, “large numbers of Middle Easterners—many of whom comprise expatriate and student communities—live and travel in Western Europe and provide cover, shelter, and potential recruits.”
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Nearing Beirut, the crew received a now familiar message from the control tower: “I am sorry, but the airport is closed.” Barricades were obstructing the runways, suggesting airport officials were serious about fending off the problem of TWA flight 847. When the captain himself explained over the radio that the plane was in distress, the controller replied, “I sympathize with you, sir. But unfortunately my superiors do not care about your problems.” Turning to one of the hijackers, the captain explained that no runways were open and that if he attempted to land, he would crash the airplane. “Good,” the hijacker replied. “That will save us the trouble of blowing it up!” Circling overhead the airport, the captain continued to press the controller to open a runway while the crew prepared the passengers for a crash landing. Ultimately a runway was opened—possibly influenced by the hijackers’ threat to crash the plane into the control tower or the presidential palace—and the flight landed. But the relief of a safe landing was short-lived.
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After stopping the plane in the middle of the runway, and thereby precluding a sneak approach by rescue teams, the hijackers dragged Stethem and Suggs to the front of the plane. Then, Suggs later testified, “everything went crazy.” The hijackers
were screaming into the radio, and the officials in the tower appeared to be screaming right back. The hijackers demanded that the Amal militia get involved in negotiations over the release of the Shi’a prisoners and became enraged when the Amal leadership failed to respond. They also wanted some of their Beirut-based compatriots to join them on the airplane.
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As the screaming continued, the hijackers resumed beating a now severely injured Robert Stethem. Suddenly, Hamadi jerked Stethem to his feet and shot him. Suggs recalled hearing Stethem, still alive, say, “Oh God! Oh God!” Suggs remembered feeling the change in pressure and the wind as the plane door was opened and a second shot rang out, with Stethem’s body falling to the tarmac.
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“They’ve just killed a passenger!” the first officer yelled into the radio. “There will be another in five minutes,” Hamadi threatened, demanding the plane be refueled immediately. Meanwhile he resumed beating Suggs.
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The captain was told to taxi to the refueling area, which he did—carefully, to avoid running over Stethem’s body. The body remained there for hours until a search by a Red Cross ambulance that night. About a half hour after arriving at the refueling area, the two hijackers were joined by five more heavily armed militants, one of whom was Imad Mughniyeh. With Mughniyeh was Fawaz Yunis, who had hijacked and blown up the Jordanian airplane just two days earlier at this same airport.
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Years later, American authorities would tie the TWA flight 847 hijacking back to not only Mughniyeh—who would be indicted in US court for his role in the attack—but also Iran. The
New York Times
would later cite US intelligence stating that an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officer, Feirud Mehdi Nezhad, was at Beirut International Airport—with Mughniyeh—during the seventeen-day standoff at the airport.
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As their comrades boarded the plane, Hamadi stopped beating Suggs, who later remembered hearing people running on board with weapons.
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The arrivals hugged the hijackers and quickly removed several US military personnel and others with Jewish-sounding names from the plane. A secondary crisis thus arose, whereby some hostages were held in safe houses across Beirut and others remained on the plane. The military hostages were held in a twelve-by-twenty-foot basement cell with a steel door and bars on the window.
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“The hijacking was engineered by Hizballah official Imad Mughniyah,” a CIA memo noted several days into the crisis, adding that “Mughniyah still holds at least four of the Americans.”
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Confirming the CIA’s information, investigators would later find Mughniyeh’s fingerprints on the plane’s lavatory walls.
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According to US prosecutors, Mughniyeh personally took part in the beatings that continued over the course of the crisis.
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Nor, during the crisis, were the hijackers discreet about their affiliation. Witness interviews conducted by the FBI after the hostages were released made clear “that one of the hijackers said that he and the other hijackers were from Hizballah.”
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Then–national security adviser Robert McFarlane would later testify that he heard “various foreign communications intercepted by the United States” that confirmed Hezbollah was behind the hijacking.
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The hijackers now demanded food and fuel, and said they wanted the runway cleared for takeoff at dawn. They also demanded that Greek authorities release
their comrade Ali Atwa, the third hijacker, who had been arrested at the Athens airport. Failure to reunite Atwa with the rest of the hijackers in Algiers, they warned, would lead them to execute the eight Greeks on the plane, including singer Demis Roussos. This presumably would have come as a surprise to Roussos, who reported after his release that his captors were “nice people” and even gave him a cake to celebrate his birthday on June 15.
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The flight’s arrival back in Algiers was clearly prenegotiated, because the airport was open and the landing uneventful. A doctor was allowed on board and three passengers suffering from heat exhaustion were released.
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Meanwhile Hamadi escorted a crew member around the plane to check on the jet’s engines. Pointing to the plane’s door, where the aircraft was streaked with Stethem’s blood, Hamadi bragged about killing the navy diver.
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The plane sat on the tarmac for almost twelve hours, during which the hijackers periodically negotiated by radio with local authorities, reprising their familiar demand for the release of Shi’a Lebanese prisoners in Israel and elsewhere and blaming America for “just about every evil in the world.” Eventually, Ali Atwa—who was flown to Algiers from Athens—was brought to the plane and fifty-eight more passengers and crew members were released. The only remaining hostages on board were American men.
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