Recollection : A Brief Taste of Terrorism: Living Through a Hijacking

Uli Derickson, a flight attendant for Trans World Airlines, became an overnight heroine in June, 1985, when terrorists hijacked TWA Flight 847 with 153 passengers and crew en route from Athens to Rome. The flight was diverted to Beirut then Algiers then back to Beirut and then back to Algiers and finally back to Beirut. Most passengers were released during the ordeal, but 39 American men held 17 days were freed June 30, 1985. Derickson argued with the hijackers to get humane treatment for the hostages and refused the hijackers’ demand that she identify the Jewish passengers on board. One passenger, Robert Dean Stethem, 23, a Navy petty officer and diver, was murdered by the hijackers. In a 1985 story in People Magazine, Derickson described the ordeal.

The first 20 minutes were the most volatile. I was in the cockpit. The flight crew wanted to see if we had fuel to make it to Beirut, and the hijackers said, “It doesn’t matter. Go until the fuel runs out.” And they’re beating the flight engineer (B. Christian Zimmermann) with a gun. Every time he or the co-pilot (Philip Maresca) picked up a mike they beat them over the head with a gun. And I’m getting pretty upset by this point. I kept crying and then I stopped, and I kept shaking, you know, involuntarily, your nerves do funny things to your body. You’re freezing cold and then you’re awfully hot, and the hijacker said to me: “What are you nervous about? I told you I’m not going to hurt you.”

On buying fuel in Algiers: There was a lot of shouting between the ground crew and the cockpit. The ground crew wanted to get paid for the fuel. They are screaming for cash or a credit card, and the hijackers are threatening to kill one passenger every five minutes if we didn’t get fuel. The captain turns around and says, “This is ridiculous.” The co-pilot is bright red in the face, screaming his lungs out to the the ground (crew) not to be so stupid, we don’t carry a charge card. So I ran back to the cabin and asked, “Does anyone have a credit card?” As I was shouting this, I said, “What’s wrong with me? I’ve got a Shell card.” So I asked for permission to go to my purse, and I got out my card and gave it to them. They put 6,000 gallons of jet fuel on my Shell credit card, about $5,500 worth.