The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking (39 page)

  
1
describe truck thieves:
James A. Arey,
The Sky Pirates: The Complete, Authoritative Story of Aerial Hijacking, Describing What Has Happened and Why
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972), 49–53. Conventional wisdom holds that the world’s first skyjacking occurred in Peru in 1931, when revolutionaries commandeered a mail plane. But the story is apocryphal: it stems from an October 1961
Family Weekly
article written by the purported victim of that hijacking, Byron D. Richards. As Richards admits in the somewhat pulpy story, he was given several days in which to decide whether to drop leaflets for the revolutionaries; he ultimately scared them into rescinding their request by claiming that the “hijacking” might cause the American military to invade.

  
2
these Cuban planes:
Ben Funk, “Mr. Harris’s War with Castro,”
This Week
, Oct. 14, 1961.

  
3
giant teenager to death:
“Airline Pilot Kills 15-Year-Old Boy Who Tries to Hijack His Airplane,”
Tri-City Herald
(Pasco, Wash.), Jul. 7, 1954.

  
4
letter of the law:
Edward McWhinney,
Aerial Piracy and International Terrorism: The Illegal Diversion of Aircraft and International Law
(Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 79.

  
5
passage to Cuba’s capital:
“Airliner Over Keys Hijacked and Returned,”
Lodi
(Calif.)
News-Sentinel
, May 5, 1961.

  
6
Caribbean rival’s treachery:
“Hijacker: Cuba Suspected Spying,”
Miami Herald
, Nov. 7, 1975.

  
7
unlikely to be repeated:
“Airways ‘Pirate’ Is Puzzle,”
Lewiston
(Me.)
Daily Sun
, May 3, 1961.

  
8
did eventually take place:
“Gift for Castro,”
Time
, Aug. 4, 1961.

  
9
blinded for life:
“ ‘Wild’ Gunman Shoots Two on Airliner,”
Pittsburgh Press
, Aug. 1, 1961.

10
lurid hijacking yarn:
The account of the Continental Airlines Flight 54 hijacking is primarily based on three sources: testimony in
Bearden v. United States of America
, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Jun. 14, 1962; “Jet Hijack Hero Feared Youth Most,”
St. Petersburg Times
, Aug. 5, 1961; and “The Skywayman,”
Time
, Aug. 11, 1961.

11
“planned hijacking of aircraft”:
“Stop Flying Fools Is Kennedy Plea,”
St. Petersburg Times
, Aug. 5, 1961.

12
“from the air lanes”:
Congressional Record: Senate 1961
(U.S. Congress, 1961), 15411–14.

13
raise the issue again:
“Seek Federal Law Against Air Hijacking,”
Daily Iowan
, Aug. 5, 1961.

14
independence against France:
“Wife Sees Hijacker as Nervous Worrier,”
Spokane Daily Chronicle
, Aug. 10, 1961.

15
SKYJACKED TO HAVANA:
“Pan Am Jet Skyjacked to Havana,”
New York Daily Mirror
, Aug. 10, 1961.

16
a capital offense:
“Senate Votes Death Penalty in Air Hijackings,”
Blade
(Toledo, Oh.), Aug. 11, 1961.

17
on September 5, 1961:
“Kennedy Signs Bill Stiffening Penalties for Plane Hijacking,”
Lewiston
(Id.)
Morning Tribune
, Sept. 6, 1961.

18
by firing squad:
“Plane Hijackers Fall to Firing Squad in Cuba,”
Mexia (Tx.) Daily News
, Sept. 17, 1961.

19
sections of their newspapers:
Clark Whelton,
Skyjack
(New York: Belmont/Tower Books, 1970), 36–37.

20
lack of political sovereignty:
“Youth Forces Plane to Land,”
Des Moines Register
, Sept. 2, 1965. 43
location and modus operandi:
“2 U.S. Sailors Menace 13 on Hawaii Plane,”
Chicago Tribune
, Oct. 13, 1965.

21
disappointment in Havana:
“Airline Pilot Declines Trip to Cuba, Uses Fire Ax to Call Exile’s Bluff,”
Blade
(Toledo, Oh.), Oct. 27, 1965.

22
relaxed emigration policy:
“Gemini Team Beat Hijack,”
Ottawa Citizen
, Nov. 18, 1965.

23
“hold his self-respect”:
“Texas Boy Still in Jail,”
Reading Eagle
, Nov. 20, 1965.

24
“seemed like the answer”:
Elizabeth Rich,
Flying Scared: Why We Are Being Skyjacked and How to Put a Stop to It
(New York: Stein and Day, 1972), 97–98.

25
“freedom at least once”:
Anthony Bryant,
Hijack
(Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: Freedom Press International, 1974), 12.

26
to retrieve each plane:
“Aerial Hijacking: Big Business,”
Press-Courier
(Oxnard, Calif.), Sept. 28, 1969.

27
evidence to the contrary:
Bryant,
Hijack
, 31–50.

28
forty pesos each:
“ ‘Take Me to Cuba’: Often They’re Sorry,”
Age
(Melbourne, Australia), Nov. 16, 1972.

29
flesh was stripped away:
Bryant,
Hijack
, 85–88.

30
he lost an eye:
“Sorry Now: Hijacker Says Cuba Is Living Hell,”
Evening Independent
(St. Petersburg, Fla.), Apr. 27, 1977.

31
hanged himself in his cell:
“American Hijackers Find Life Drab in Unsympathetic Cuba,”
Lewiston
(Me.)
Daily Sun
, Nov. 29, 1971.

32
dressed as a cowboy:
“ ‘Cowboy’ Rustles Jet for Flight to Cuba,”
Pittsburgh Press
, Feb. 22, 1968.

33
study Communism firsthand:
“Plane Hijacker Seeks Asylum, Cuba Radio Says,”
Press-Courier
(Oxnard, Calif.), Feb. 19, 1968.

34
delicately seasoned
frijoles
: “Nervous Hijacker Homesick for Cuba,”
Sarasota Journal
, Dec. 4, 1968.

35
“I see no reason”:
“FAA Says There’s No Way to Prevent Plane Hijacks,”
Bulletin
(Bend, Ore.), Jul. 5, 1968.

36
extra vacation days:
David Phillips,
Skyjack: The Story of Air Piracy
(London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1973), 74. It was customary for airlines to give hijacked employees an extra week of paid vacation.

37
willing to find out:
“Historical Air Traffic Statistics, Annual 1954–1980,” Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Bureau of Transportation Statistics,
http://www.bts.gov/programs/airline_information/air_carrier_traffic_statistics/airtraffic/annual/1954_1980.html
.

38
$360 million in 1967:
“Airlines View Earnings Decline,”
New York Times
, Dec. 5, 1968.

39
his government post:
“Pan Am’s Lobbyists Help,”
Ocala Star-Banner
, Sept. 29, 1966.

40
“invasion of privacy”:
“FAA Says There’s No Way to Prevent Plane Hijacks.”

41
James Eastland of Mississippi:
“Pistol-Wielding Man Talked Out of Hijacking Airliner,”
Spartanburg
(S.C.)
Herald Journal
, Jul. 14, 1968.

42
against capitalist decadence:
“Idea Proposed to Curtail Hijacking of Airliners,”
Dispatch
(Lexington, N.C.), Jul. 11, 1968.

43
“lives of all on board”:
“ ‘We’ve Got Another Hijacking’ and Action Begins to Have Plane and Passengers Released,”
New York Times
, Dec. 20, 1968.

44
“can’t make Cuba”:
“Pilot Cards
Avoid Hijacking ‘Babel,’ ”
Pittsburgh Press
, Jan. 26, 1969.

45
return of stolen planes:
“Hijacking Routine,”
Lodi
(Calif.)
News-Sentinel
, Jan. 28, 1969.

46
“or rum daiquiris, sir?”:
“It Happened Last Night,”
Middlesboro
(Ky.)
Daily News
, Mar. 21, 1968.

47
“there are no tragedies”:
“Handling Hijackings,”
Pittsburgh Press
, Dec. 10, 1968.

48
“Czech peasant blouses”:
“What to Do When the Hijacker Comes,”
Time
, Dec. 6, 1968.

49
tactic in their struggle:
“19 Years on the Run: A Hijack Suspect’s Life,”
New York Times
, Jul. 27, 1988.

50
war as a motive:
“Deserter Jacks Plane to Cuba,”
Beaver County
(Ore.)
Times
, Jan. 25, 1969.

51
three-year-old son:
“Little Boy in Hijack Try Home,”
Sarasota Journal
, Jan. 14, 1969.

52
can of bug spray:
“Pilot to Help Dutchess Teen Who Tried Hijack,”
Evening News
(Newburgh, N.Y.), May 8, 1969.

53
for Marxist economics:
“Purdue Dropout Is Hijack Suspect,”
Tri City Herald
(Pasco, Wash.), Jan. 10, 1969.

54
with his bare hands:
“Alleged Hijacker Was Green Berets Veteran,”
Times-News
(Hendersonville, N.C.), Jan. 16, 1969. The hijacker in question, Robert “Reds” Helmey, vividly recounts the hijacking in his self-published memoir
The Lemon Dance: Tell Fidel El Rojo Is Coming
.

55
who knew the lyrics:
“Many Offer Ways to Foil Plane Hijackers,”
Gettysburg Times
, Jan. 30, 1969; “Use Boxing Gloves to Stop Hijackings,”
Tuscaloosa News
, Oct. 10, 1970.

56
discarded as too expensive:
“What We Can Do to Stop Skyjacking,”
Spartanburg
(S.C.)
Herald-Journal
, Jun. 15, 1969. The article’s author, John H. Shaffer, was then head of the FAA.

57
skies above South Carolina:
“Man Arrested in Hijack Try,”
St. Petersburg Times
, Aug. 6, 1969.

58
Boeing 707 over Nevada:
“Ex–Panther Head in Skyjack Case,”
Lawrence
(Kan.)
Daily Journal-World
, Jun. 21, 1969.

59
upon landing in Havana:
“Hijacker Sentenced to Fifteen Years,”
Spartanburg
(S.C.)
Herald-Journal
, Oct. 6, 1970.

60
along for the ride:
“Greek Family of Four Pull Hijack in ‘Name of Democracy and Freedom,’ ”
Herald-Tribune
(Sarasota, Fla.), Aug. 18, 1969.

61
capital of Damascus:
“U.S. Jet with 113 Hijacked to Syria by 2 Young Arabs,”
New York Times
, Aug. 30, 1969.

62
Zionist Organization of America:
Leila Khaled,
My People Shall Live: The Autobiography of a Revolutionary
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1973), 125–28.

63
“engaged to the revolution”:
“ ‘I Made the Ring from a Bullet and the Pin of a Hand Grenade,’ ”
Guardian
, Jan. 26, 2001; “The Arabs’ No. 1 Lady Skyjacker,”
Victoria
(Tex.)
Advocate
, Nov. 29, 1970.

64
for covert operations:
Khaled,
My People Shall Live
, 179–83.

65
or prosecute hijackers:
Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft,
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/hague1970.html
.

66
potential “hijacker havens”:
Signatories to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft,
http://www.icao.int/secretariat/legal/List%20of%20Parties/Hague_EN.pdf
.

67
Cuban community:
Mark Feldman, interview by author, Aug. 2010.

68
“has just died out”:
“Hijacking
‘Fad’ May Have Died, FAA Says,”
Evening Herald
(Rock Hill, S.C.), May 7, 1969.

69
“ ‘Send the wop,’ they say”:
Rich,
Flying Scared
, 128.

70
250 rounds of ammunition:
“Anatomy of a Skyjacker,”
Time
, Dec. 5, 1969.

71
shots of Canadian Club:
“Hijacker Termed Gentlemanly, Mad,”
Spokane Daily Chronicle
, Nov. 1, 1969.

72
and Shannon, Ireland:
“Pilot Criticizes FBI’s Action Here,”
New York Times
, Nov. 2, 1969.

73
“why are you arresting me?”:
“Nuova Versione Sul Clamoroso Atto di Pirateria,”
Il Corriere di Napoli
, Nov. 9, 1969.

74
“like to marry him!”:
“Minichiello Hero to Countrymen,”
Times-News
(Hendersonville, N.C.), Nov. 8, 1969.