Hijacked Plane in Cyprus After 7 Hours of Air Terror : Gun Held at Pleading Pilot’s Head

A hijacked Kuwaiti jumbo jet carrying 55 people landed in Larnaca, Cyprus, today, seven terror-filled hours after taking off from Mashhad airport in Iran. During the ordeal, the captain desperately pleaded to land in Beirut, saying he had a gun to his head and was running out of fuel, but Beirut airport responded that it would open fire.

“I’ll never forget this, thank you!” the captain shouted into the radio after Larnaca air traffic controllers told him he was cleared to land.

The blue-and-white Kuwait Airways Boeing 747 touched down at Larnaca Airport at 9:10 p.m. (11:10 a.m. PDT) after Damascus Airport in Syria refused to let it land and Beirut airport officials told the pilot to crash into the sea.

Larnaca airport authorities said a “state of emergency” was declared as the plane made its final approach to land at the facility after nightfall.

The ordeal for the hostages was not over, however, as the hooded Arab hijackers demanded that authorities at Larnaca Airport refuel the plane.

The jetliner left Mashhad in northeastern Iran at 2:28 p.m. (4:58 a.m. PDT) after the Arab hijackers threatened to blow the plane up. It was hijacked Tuesday on a flight from Bangkok to Kuwait and forced to land at Mashhad.

The hijackers were demanding the release of 17 pro-Iranian terrorists jailed in Kuwait for bombing the U.S. and French embassies there in 1983.

‘14 Years Under Gunfire’

Earlier, the pilot pleaded with the Beirut International Airport control tower to be allowed to land.

“A gun is pointed to my head. I request landing permission to land to refuel,” the captain was overheard shouting through the jet’s radio three hours after leaving Mashhad.

“We have been for 14 years under gunfire,” an airport official replied, referring to Lebanon’s civil war. “If you try to land by force, the plane will be fired on.”

According to sources monitoring radio traffic, a man speaking Arabic with an east Lebanon accent came to the radio and asked that controllers put him in touch with Lebanese officials.

But Interior Minister Abdullah Rassi, in a statement broadcast by the official media, again refused to allow the plane to land.

A hijacker then said: “I shall punish control tower officials if they don’t allow us to land. The passengers are all in panic now and many of them are vomiting. Among the passengers is a member of the Kuwaiti ruling family who has a heart condition.”

‘All the Lebanese Suffer’

A control tower official in Beirut radioed back saying: “With all due respect to all families, permit me to say that all the Lebanese suffer heart ailments (from the war). Do not try to talk to me sentimentally.”

Three members of Kuwait’s Al Sabah Royal Family were aboard the plane.

One of them, a woman identified as Anware Khaled al Sabah, told the control tower in a choking voice: “I beg you. Allow us to land. We have no fuel left.”

Later, sources said, the pilot radioed back and said, “If you fail to clear the runways within a few minutes, we will land in the sea.”

“Do whatever you want,” the controller said. “Crash on the tarmac or in the sea. . . . We shall not let you land here.”

The pilot had reported 1 1/2 hours after leaving Mashhad that he had enough fuel for three hours.

Runways Blocked

A Beirut control tower official said fire engines and passenger buses of Middle East Airlines, Lebanon’s flag carrier, were parked on the airport’s two runways to block the plane from landing.

Syrian troops, who control the airport, blocked all roads to the airport on Beirut’s southern edge.

The gunmen--believed to number about six--have released 57 passengers since Tuesday.

All the remaining hostages aboard the plane are believed to be Arabs, including more than 30 Kuwaitis. One passenger was believed to hold both U.S. and Egyptian passports.

Before Iranian workers removed obstacles to takeoff in Mashhad, the hijackers brought a man to the top of the jetliner’s stairway and fired three warning shots, then tossed a grenade out the door, the official Iranian news agency IRNA said. It did not say whether it exploded.

The captain was quoted as saying a passenger was forced into the cockpit and beaten, IRNA reported.

Freed Hostages Silent

It said the captain gave that report after being queried about a wail of pain heard over control-tower radio. It was not clear whether the man shown in the stairway was the beaten passenger.

After the hijackers released some of the hostages Thursday, the jet was refueled, but only after the hijackers fired five shots at security men, IRNA reported.

The 57 released hostages arrived in Kuwait aboard a Kuwait Airways plane that picked them up in Mashhad.

They appeared tired and dazed. They were taken to another area in the airport and most of them did not speak to reporters there.

One, Irishman Kieran O’Kelly, was quoted in the Times of London as saying: “The hijackers are very determined young men who are quite willing to die. I am concerned for the safety of the hostages left on board.”