Feb. 13, 2003
LOS ANGELES - Ten years ago this week, two close friends and I were flying to Egypt to seek spiritual tranquility at the great temple of Karnak when we were hijacked by angry Ethiopian.
I was turning fifty, my friend 49. To assuage our pain, he, his wife and I decided to go to Upper Egypt and seek inner peace on the banks of Mother Nile at Karnak. In mysterious Egypt, one feels time is not linear, but rather circular, flowing in an eternal cycle of birth and rebirth. So off we flew from Toronto to drink deep from the cup of Egypt's ancient spirituality.
As our Lufthansa A310 jumbo jet was overflying Austria, heading for Cairo, its captain, Herr Goebel, politely announced, `Ladies and gentleman, a young man is holding a pistol to my head and wants to go to Hanover. ' Not having slept a wink on the previous night's transatlantic crossing, I was dozing and thought the announcement was part of an onboard movie.
But it was not. In Frankfurt, where we had changed aircraft, a 20-something Ethiopian hid a pistol under his hat and managed to evade airport security, which foolishly used metal-detecting wands to search passengers. No one had looked under his hat. After takeoff, the youth grabbed one of the flight attendants and threatened to shoot her unless he was admitted to the locked flight deck. In he went, and commandeered the plane.
We changed course and flew to Hanover, in northern Germany. There we sat for six or seven hours while the hijacker negotiated with German authorities, who were in a tizzy, while local various police forces and state agencies argued over who was in charge. The Germans refused to refuel the A310 until our Ethiopian threatened to begin shooting crew members or passengers - and anyone trying to escape. This posed an interesting dilemma, as we were seated forward next to a window emergency exit and were debating escaping. But the long drop down to the ground could have seriously injured us; had we escaped, we might have been charged with causing the deaths of the crew.
While we were debating, the A310 took off. Capt Goebel announced the hijacker wanted to go to New York. `New York!' we groaned, `what rotten luck. Any normal hijacker would pick Libya, or Syria, or Sudan. Why can't we at least be hijacked to the Mideast, where we're going. Why New York? We just came from Toronto!' The hijacker, it turned out, had been refused a visa to the US and was determined to get there by hook or crook.
The slow A310 lumbered over the North Atlantic for interminable hours. Terrified passengers held hands and prayed. Women cried and went hysterical. My friend and I were ready to attack the hijacker and stab him in the throat with my Swiss Army knife, but he refused to come out of the flight deck. We sat there helplessly, pondering our fate. I finally went to sleep.
My friend's wife shook me awake after an hour's sleep. She had discovered that by plugging her Walkman into the entertainment system she could overhear conversations between the hijacker and New York's Kennedy Airport. The hijacker was negotiating with the FBI and New York City police. Meanwhile, the CIA, German security agencies, ATF, FAA, NY Port Authority, Mayor's Office and State Dept were all competing into the drama.
Our hijacker demanded safe haven and immunity. When refused, he threatened to crash the jumbo jet into lower Manhattan, a sinister portent of what was to occur eight years later, on Sept 2001.
As we neared New York, I prepared for death, believing the hijacker would crash the aircraft since his alternative was a mandatory 20 years in prison for air piracy. Somehow, the FBI managed to talk him down, though we remained convinced until our wheels hit the runway that the hijacker would kill our pilot and crash the aircraft. Upon landing, the Ethiopian surrendered; a heavily armed FBI SWAT team stormed the plane and held us all at gunpoint, looking for other hijackers. I was taken away by the FBI, which had been informed I was a `terrorism expert,' and debriefed for many hours.
As I stumbled out of the terminal, exhausted and bleary-eyed, I was mobbed by a small army of reporters and TV crews. The hijacking was a worldwide news event. ABC had me by one arm, CBC, by another, CNN grabbed by lapels. I wrote report for the Sun, broadcast on US TV non-stop for 18 hours, slept a little, took an Egyptair Flight to Cairo, wrapped in blankets in the cockpit by the kindly Egyptians, connected to a Luxor flight delayed for me, and somehow managed to get to the dock and board our Nile steamer just as it was sailing. My friends, who left New York earlier, were waiting.
We sailed up the Nile, totally exhausted, nerves shattered, nearly mummified by dehydration, and suffering near lethal jet lag. But we finally managed to stand in the mighty temple of Karnak and wish each other a happy birthday.
Foreign Correspondent