Terrorism: Massacre in Malta - TIME

(2 of 5)

In the end, the commandos halted the hijacking but lacked the expertise, or perhaps merely the good fortune, to prevent a terrible loss of life. Late in the week autopsies revealed that eight of the victims had died from the effects of explosions and seven had been shot to death, including an American passenger, Scarlett Marie Rogenkamp, 38, of Oceanside, Calif. But no fewer than 44 had died from burns and smoke inhalation. Of the three to five terrorists on board, one or two survived. Experts in Malta debated whether the majority of deaths had been caused by the explosives detonated by the Egyptians in gaining entrance to the plane or by the grenades thrown by the hijackers when they realized that a rescue operation was under way. In truth, it hardly mattered, because the events of terrorism, attempted rescue and death had been so inextricably bound together. "Dear friends," Captain Galal said mournfully after it was all over, "my aircraft was the same one that was hijacked to Sigonella." It was indeed the same Boeing 737 that, scarcely six weeks earlier, had been forced by American Navy jets to land in Sicily, to yield to Italian authorities the terrorists who had hijacked the Achille Lauro. The question was how many more planes would be destroyed, and lives lost, before ways are found to control this peculiarly contemporary form of international lawlessness.

Flight 648 had taken off from Athens at 9:06 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 23, and headed in a southeasterly direction toward Cairo. On board was a typically multinational mix of passengers, including Egyptians returning home from holidays abroad, Greek merchant seamen bound for Port Said to join their ships, a Filipino dance troupe and a scattering of European, Israeli and American tourists. Captain Galal, a 15-year airline veteran, was assisted by a five-member crew.

Twenty-two minutes after takeoff, as the aircraft passed over the Greek island of Milos, a well-dressed young man rose from his seat near the front of the plane, drew a pistol from a plastic bag and pointed it at crew members who were distributing newspapers and magazines. Another man, seated in the rear section, jumped into the aisle and shouted, "Don't move!" In the cockpit, a third man shoved the barrel of a pistol against the captain's head. The terrorists in the cabin instructed all passengers to surrender their passports. One of the men was particularly rough. "He was pulling people's papers out of their pockets and throwing them around and shouting," Loretana Chafik, an Egyptian passenger, later recalled. "When he got to an Israeli girl, he put his hands all over her. It was horrible."

ncG1vNJzZmibn6PBprrTZ6uipZVjsLC5jq2gpp1fqMKjv8KroJudomSus8DInKOeZ2BhgHR8j3JjamhnaYV1foxrY2loXp3Brrg%3D