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In the Dawson's Field hijackings ( September 6 -7, 1970 ) four Jet Aircraft bound for New York City were Hijacked by members of the Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine . TWA Flight 74 from Frankfurt Am Main and Swissair Flight 100 from Zürich-Kloten Airport landed at '''Dawson's Field''', a remote desert airstrip in Jordan , while Pan Am Flight 93 from Amsterdam , a Boeing 747 , was taken to Beirut and Cairo as the hijackers feared landing it on the small strip. The hijacking of El Al Flight 219 was foiled; hijacker Patrick Arguello was shot to death and his partner Leila Khaled was subdued and turned over to British authorities in London . The following day, a fifth plane, BOAC flight 775 from Bahrain , was hijacked by a PFLP sympathizer and brought to Dawson's Field in order to pressure the British to free Khaled. For many years, the incident was known as "the blackest day in aviation." The majority of the 310 hostages were transferred to jail. The PFLP's use of Jordanian territory played a role in destabilizing the Jordanian Monarchy , and triggered the "Black September" conflict five days after the planes were destroyed. The events also influenced relationships among the King Of Jordan , the State Of Israel , the United States Of America , and the United Kingdom , as well as shaping the policy of these nations with respect to Terrorism . BACKGROUND The PFLP The hijackings occurred in the context of the Arab-Israeli Conflict . The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( Arabic الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين - ''al-jabhah al-sha`biyyah li-tahrīr filastīn''), a Marxist-Leninist , Nationalist Palestinian political and military organization, was founded in 1967. Prior to the Dawson's Field hijackings, the PFLP had already achieved notoriety for several similar incidents, including the hijacking of an El Al flight from Rome to Lod airport, Israel, on July 23 , 1968 in which 21 passengers and 11 crew members were held for 39 days; armed attacks on El Al jets in Athens (December, 1968), killing one and wounding two, and Zürich (February 1969), killing the co-pilot and wounding the pilot; and the hijacking of a TWA flight from Los Angeles to Damascus on August 29 , 1969 by a PFLP cell led by Leila Khaled , who became the PFLP's most famous recruit. Two Israeli passengers were held for 44 days. Several months prior to the Dawson's Field hijackings, the PFLP bombed Swissair Flight 330 bound for Israel , killing 47 on February 21, 1970. Palestinian/Jordanian tensions Adding further tension to the ongoing conflict was civil strife within Jordan itself. After the 1967 Six Day War , in which Israel had captured the Jordanian-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River, thousands of Palestinians were displaced across the river into Jordan, where they became an increasingly autonomous challenge to the Hashemite Monarchy of the young King Hussein . Between mid-1968 and the end of 1969, no fewer than five hundred violent clashes occurred between Palestinian guerrillas and Jordanian security forces. Cross-border attacks by the Palestine Liberation Organization against Israel invited heavy Israeli reprisals which resulted in high Jordanian civilian and military casualties. In June 1970, an Arab mediation committee intervened to halt two weeks of serious fighting between the two sides. Global Security.org 3 This civil conflict was another part of the background to the Dawson's Field hijackings, which drew the government of Jordan into an international incident precipitated by the PFLP, and eventually led to the events known as " Black September In Jordan ." Airport security Airplane hijackings were a comparatively new development in Europe and the Middle East. Accordingly, airline security was in its infancy; Metal Detector s were not typically used to screen passengers, and though some of the hijackers' luggage was searched, the hijackers were able to board the airplanes in each case carrying concealed weapons on their persons. THE HIJACKINGS El Al Flight 219 American , and Leila Khaled , a Palestinian. The original plan was to have four hijackers aboard this flight, but two were prevented from boarding in Amsterdam by Israeli security — these two conspirators, traveling under Senegal ese passports with consecutive numbers, Public Broadcasting System , ''Hijacked'' website, 5 were prevented from flying on El Al on September 6. However, they successfully joined the hijackers of Pan Am Flight 93 at the same airport. Posing as a married couple, Argüello and Khaled boarded the plane using Honduran Passport s - having passed through a security check of their luggage - and were seated in the second row of tourist-class. Once the plane was approaching the British coast, they drew their guns and approached the cockpit, demanding entrance. According to Khaled, in an interview in 2000, "So half an hour (after take off) we had to move. We stood up. I had my two hand grenades and I showed everybody I was taking the pins out with my teeth. Patrick stood up. We heard shooting just the same minute and when we crossed the first class, people were shouting but I didn't see who was shooting because it was behind us. So Patrick told me "go forward I protect your back." So I went and then he found a hostess and she was going to catch me round the legs. So I rushed, reached to the cockpit, it was closed. So I was screaming "open the door." Then the hostess came; she said "she has two hand grenades," but they did not open (the cockpit door) and suddenly I was threatening to blow up the plane. I was saying "I will count and if you don't open I will blow up the plane." Baum, Philip. ''Aviation Security International'' September, 2000. 6 After being informed by intercom that a hijacking was in progress, Captain Uri Bar Lev decided not to acceed to their demands: "I decided that we were not going to be hijacked. The security guy was sitting here ready to jump. I told him that I was going to put the plane into negative-G mode. Everyone would fall. When you put the plane into negative, it's like being in a falling elevator. Instead of the plane flying this way, it dives and everyone who is standing falls down. Bar Lev put the plane into a steep nosedive which threw the two hijackers off-balance. Argüello reportedly threw his sole grenade down the airliner aisle, but it failed to explode, and he was hit over the head with a bottle of Whiskey by a passenger after he drew his pistol. Arguello shot Steward Shlomo Vider and according to the Israeli account, was then shot by a sky marshal. Khaled was beaten by security and passengers, while the plane made an emergency landing at Heathrow Airport ; she claimed that Arguello was shot four times in the back after being beaten and bound. Vider underwent emergency and recovered from his wounds, while Arguello died in the ambulance taking both him and Khaled to Hillingdon Hospital . Khaled was then arrested by the British government. TWA Flight 74 TWA Flight 74, Boeing 707 ''N8715T'' 18917/460, was an around-the-world flight carrying 141 passengers and a crew of 10. It was hijacked shortly after taking off from Frankfurt Am Main , Germany . In an interview for the film ''Hijacked'', Flight 74's Purser , Rudi Swinkles, recalled, "I saw a passenger running towards first class. I ran after him and when he came to first class to the cockpit, he turned around, had a gun in his hand, and pointed the gun at me, and said, "Get back, get back." So right away, I dove behind the bulkhead first class divider and I hid behind it, over here." ''Hijacked'' 7 It landed at Dawson's Field in Jordan at 6:45 pm local time. ''Hijacked'' 8 Hijackers gained control of the cockpit and stated, "This is your new captain speaking. This flight has been taken over by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine {Link without Title} ." Swissair Flight 100 Swissair Flight 100, Douglas DC-8 ''HB-IDD'' was carrying 143 passengers and twelve crew from Zürich-Kloten Airport , Switzerland to New York. It also landed at Dawson's Field. Pan Am Flight 93 , Belgium to New York with a stop in Amsterdam. The two hijackers bumped from the El Al flight boarded, and hijacked, this flight as a target of opportunity. According to the recollections of Flight Director John Feruggio, "We were ready for take off in Amsterdam, and the airplane came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the runway. And Captain Priddy called me up into the cockpit and says, "I'd like to have a word with you." I went up to the cockpit, and he says, "We have two passengers by the name of Diop and Gueye." He says, "Go down and try to find them in the manifest, because I would like to have a word with them...So Captain Priddy sat them down at these two seats over here. He gave them a pretty good pat. They had a Styrofoam container in their groin area where they carried the grenade, and the 25mm pistols. But this we found out much later." The plane first landed in Beirut where it refueled and picked up several associates of the hijackers, along with enough explosives to destroy the entire plane. It then landed in Cairo , after there was uncertainty whether the Dawson's Field airport could handle the size of the new Boeing 747 jets. The plane was blown up at Cairo, seconds after everybody deplaned. An audio transcript of Feruggio's landing instructions to passengers was recorded by one of them, and can be heard in an National Public Radio report here . BOAC flight 775 On September 7, a fifth plane, BOAC flight 775, a VC-10 , was hijacked on its voyage from Bahrain to Beirut and brought to Dawson's Field. This was the work of a PFLP sympathizer who wanted to influence the British government to free Leila Khaled . On September 12 , after taking the passengers off, the guerrillas blew up the three planes (TWA, Swissair, BOAC) in the Jordan desert. This was seen by newscrews and broadcast to international television. Eventually, a deal was brokered that led to the release of all hostages in exchange for Leila Khaled and three PFLP guerrillas held in a Swiss jail. DAYS IN THE DESERT On September 7 , 1970, the hijackers held a press conference for sixty members of the media who had made their way to what was being called "Revolution Airport." About 125 hostages were transferred to Amman , while the American, Israeli, Swiss, and West German citizens were held on the planes. Raab, David. ''The New York Times Magazine'', August 22, 2004. 9. Reprinted at http://blackseptember1970.com Jewish passengers were also held. Passenger Rivka Borkowitz of New York, interviewed in 2006, recalled "the hijackers went around asking people their religion, and I said I was Jewish." Another Jewish hostage, sixteen-year-old Barbara Mensch, was told she was "a political prisoner." As groups of the remaining passengers and crew were assembled on the sand in front of the media, members of the PFLP, among them Bassam Abu Sharif , made statements. Public Broadcasting System , ''American Experience'', 10 Sharif claimed that the goal of the hijackings was "to gain the release of all of our political prisoners jailed in Israel in exchange for the hostages." REACTIONS United States According to PBS, President Richard Nixon met with his advisors on September 8 and ordered United States Secretary Of Defense Melvin Laird to bomb the PFLP positions in Jordan. Laird refused on the pretext that the weather was unfavorable, and the idea was dropped. The 82nd Airborne Division was put on alert, the Sixth Fleet was put to sea, and military aircraft were sent to Turkey in preparation for a possible military strike. ''Hijacked'' 11 United Kingdom British '', January 2, 2001. 12 On September 13, the BBC World Service broadcast a government announcement in Arabic saying that the UK would release Khaled in exchange for the hostages. ''UK Confidential'', January 1, 2001 13 Government of Jordan King Hussein had survived several assassination attempts by Fedayeen in the week preceding the hijackings, but his reign was under continued threat by the increasingly powerful Palestinian organizations. The destruction of the airplanes highlighted the inability of the government to resolve the situation. According to United States Secretary Of State Henry Kissinger , "At this point, whether because readiness measures had given [King Hussein a psychological lift or because he was reaching the point of desperation, Hussein resolved on an all-out confrontation with the fedayeen." Kissinger, Henry. 14. ''Time'' Magazine, October 15, 1979. Military action against the PFLP, PLO, and allied groups carried the danger that Syria and/or Iraq would intervene against the monarchy. According to British documents declassified under the "thirty-year rule," an anxious King Hussein asked the US and UK to pass a request to Israel to bomb Syrian troops who had pledged to enter Jordan in support of the Palestinians. CONSEQUENCES These spectacular and ostentatious hijackings were viewed by the Jordanian government as an act of defiance against itself, and played a role in triggering the "Black September" conflict. Later PFLP actions. {Link without Title} President Richard Nixon commissioned an initial group of 100 federal agents to begin serving as armed air marshals on U.S. flights. DOCUMENTARY FILM In 2006, Ilan Ziv wrote and directed ''Hijacked'', an hour-long episode of PBS 's program ''The American Experience''. Ziv included archival footage of the events and interviewed hijackers, hostages, members of the media, and politicians about the Dawson's Field hijackings. The show originally aired February 26 , 2006. REFERENCES SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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