TWA Flight 840 was a

Trans World Airlines Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1930 until it was acquired by American Airlines in 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles ...

flight from Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome, Italy, to Ben Gurion International Airport in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

, Israel, that was hijacked on 29 August 1969. There were no fatalities although at least two passengers were lightly wounded and the aircraft was significantly damaged. Two hostages were held for two months.

Hijacking

In August 1969, leaders in the

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

left-wing organization

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP; ) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation ...

(PFLP) learned that

Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin (; , ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the prime minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977, and from 1992 until Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, his ass ...

, then Israeli

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or so ...

to the United States, was scheduled to be aboard a

(TWA) Rome–Athens–Tel Aviv flight. On 29 August two operatives, Leila Khaled and Salim Issawi, hijacked the aircraft. Rabin was not aboard, but American diplomat Thomas D. Boyatt was. The hijackers made the pilots land the aircraft at Damascus International Airport in Syria. They evacuated the aircraft, a

Boeing 707 The Boeing 707 is an early American long-range Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype, the initial first flew on Decembe ...

, and blew up the nose section of the aircraft. At the terminal, Khaled delivered a speech to the passengers, further explaining the motives of the hijacking. She said, "I assumed nowiki/>Shadia Abu Ghazaleh's">Shadia_Abu_Ghazaleh.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Shadia Abu Ghazaleh">nowiki/>Shadia Abu Ghazaleh'sname on flight 840 to tell the world about the crimes the Israelis inflict upon our people and to demonstrate to you that they make no distinctions between men, women and children. But for their own propaganda objectives they repeatedly state in your press how we attack their 'innocent' women and children and how cruel we are. I want you to know that we love children, too, and we certainly do not aim our guns at them. We diverted flight 840 because TWA is one of the largest American airlines that services the Israeli air routes and, more importantly, because it is an American plane. The American government is Israel's staunchest supporter. It supplies Israel with weapons for our destruction. It gives the Zionists tax-free American dollars. It supports Israel at world conferences. It helps them in every possible way. We are against America because she is an imperialist country." The Syrian authorities arrested the hijackers and immediately released the 12 crew members and 95 passengers, retaining at first six Israeli passengers. Of those, four were released on 3 September. The remaining two Israeli passengers were released in December in return for 71 Syrian and Egyptian soldiers released by Israel. The two Palestinian hijackers had been released without charges in mid-October. The aircraft sustained $4 million in damage. Boeing repaired the aircraft, fitting the nose section diverted from the production line at Renton and outfitted to the aircraft's specifications. The aircraft was re-registered N28714 and returned to service. In March 1980, the aircraft was withdrawn from service and flown to Davis–Monthan Air Force Base for use as spares for the KC-135 Stratotanker fleet of the United States Air Force. The aircraft's registration was canceled in March 1984. Thomas Boyatt has received many medals and awards for his bravery and heroism during the hijacking, including a

Meritorious Honor Award The Meritorious Honor Award is an award of the United States Department of State. Similar versions of the same award exist for the former U.S. Information Agency, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and USAID. It is presented to groups or indi ...

Hijacking

References

See also