Hostages Say They Expected to Die on Jet
Hostages freed from a Pan American World Airways jetliner by a SWAT team said Saturday that they had expected to die at the hands of an irrational, armed woman who threatened to shoot them.
“I fully expected to be shot,” said one of the hostages, Bonnie Esterquest, at a news conference. “She told me, ‘Before I shoot anybody, I’ll shoot you.’ ”
Oranette Mays, 42, of Cleveland, had shot her way onto the Boeing 727 aircraft at Hopkins International Airport Friday afternoon. She took seven persons hostage and demanded that she be flown to Rio de Janeiro, police said.
About two hours into the 6 1/2-hour siege, she released three hostages. Police stormed the plane after she threatened to harm one of the four remaining, an 8-month-old baby.
Mays was shot in the takeover and was in serious but stable condition Saturday.
“We tried to protect our head and our hearts,” Esterquest, 75, said. “She kept promising that we would get it.”
Her husband, Frank, said that Mays refused to let him get food from the galley for the baby. The Esterquests, Cynthia Shisler, 27, and Shisler’s baby, Laura, were the last four hostages aboard.
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