| The supposed reason for our emergency landing — a technical problem — was prominent in my mind as the plane landed. As the plane went through the landing process, I focused intently on the wing out my window, lest it should fall off. As it turned out, though, we were not landing because of any problems with the plane.
According to press accounts, but unbeknownst to us passengers, our plane, a Turkish Airlines jetliner, had been hijacked. On our way from Tirana, the capital of Albania, we were headed for Istanbul.
The captain activated the hijacking distress signal, and we were immediately shadowed by Greek Air Force fighter jets. Then, as we left Greek territory the Italian Air Force took up escort duty. In the cockpit, the captain told the hijacker that we didn't have enough fuel to go all the way to Rome (his intended destination) and that we would have to land in Brindisi, a city in the heel of the Italian boot, almost directly across the Adriatic Sea from Tirana.
As we settled on the runway, several fire trucks and other emergency vehicles raced toward us. This only added to the notion that our plane was going to fall apart at any moment.
The landing was a bit rough but not bad. A few people cheered. Then the plane stopped on the tarmac. As happens on every flight, the instant the plane stopped people threw off their seatbelts and leapt out of their seats. The flight attendants came back and scolded everyone: "Get in your seats until the seatbelt sign is turned off. Turn off your mobile phones."
The flight attendants, however, were preoccupied with the hijacking and didn't waste much energy enforcing rules. Soon everyone who had a cell phone was calling someone. The scene was one of fun and games. Everyone was chatting away, and no one seemed the least bit worried.
Soon people started barking for food and water. The time came for the Muslims who were fasting for Ramadan to break the fast. The rest of us had also not eaten for several hours and were hungry. In response, a flight attendant appeared with five sandwiches in her hands for 107 passengers. Everyone shouted "me, me, me!" and stuck their hands out. The sandwiches didn't get far. Water distribution was the same. I got neither food nor water. "Worst service ever," I thought to myself.
People began milling about the plane. The flight attendants would come back periodically, and people would sort of get back to their seats. Several guys had unlit cigarettes hanging out of their mouths awaiting a chance to light up. The plane was abuzz with Albanian, but I couldn't understand a lick of it. Actually, that's not true. The word in Albanian for terrorist is very similar to the English word. In any case, I was eventually informed by other passengers that there were terrorists in business class.
Soon after the plane had been hijacked, the story was on the news. The story was then filtering down to us via cell phone. Even as the news of the terrorists was circulating around the plane, there didn't seem to be an ounce of concern. I don't know why, but I also didn't care. I just wanted to get going.
The flight attendants continued to come to the back of the plane to keep people in line and face a barrage of questions. Unprepared to offer any information, they continued to repeat the party line about technical difficulties. Some of these flight attendants were rattled and clearly stressed out. Others were calm and even enjoyed some laughs with the passengers.
After what seemed like hours, a few of the passengers finally got irritated and demanded answers. One short, stocky man, who I would later learn was an American bound for Chicago, shouted at the flight attendant. "This is ridiculous! We have a right to know what is happening!" He got no answers, though, and the other passengers helped pacify him.
In order to communicate better, the flight crew enlisted the help of a passenger who could speak Albanian and Turkish. They set him out delivering the same uninformative messages they had been giving.
Suddenly, the plane lost power. The main lights turned off, the emergency lights turned on and we lost our precious air conditioning. We sat in silence for several minutes until power was restored.
Then the hijacker stood in the middle of the aisle at the barrier separating business class from steerage. A mild looking man with short-cropped hair, wearing a dark blue sweater with a white stripe across the chest, he didn't really fit my image of a terrorist. He smiled and waved to us. The passengers, in turn, cheered and clapped and waved back. It was bizarre to be sure. There were dozens of photographs and videos made of that moment.
The hijacker, now surrendering, turned and walked down the air stairs toward the waiting authorities with his hands up. During the entire ordeal, he had remained in business class, talking with members of the flight crew. He never came back into the economy section, and as far as I could tell, he didn't interact with any passengers.
A moment after he left the plane, police entered. Again came the cheering and clapping from the passengers. Several police officers walked through the plane counting us. Then one of them addressed us: "Take all of your things and depart the plane. After a few checks we will reload and you will be on your way."
We were thoroughly scrutinized at a handful of stations as we left the plane. Then we were bussed to the tiny terminal at Brindisi airport, where we would wait for the next several hours as processing continued. It was also decided that we could not reboard the same plane, so we had to wait for a new plane to arrive. Part of the ongoing processing was the photographing and fingerprinting of all of the passengers except for the one Australian and the four Americans. Besides the security personnel, several other groups of people – medics, airline personnel and cleaners – looked after us.
In our holding area, there was a touch-screen computer kiosk with headline news. At the time, we were headline news, and I finally got the complete story of our hijacking.
Airport staff brought us food and drink every hour or so. A man would come in with a tray of croissants, for example, and everyone would descend on him like vultures. Every food delivery was a feeding frenzy.
Eventually it was time for us to leave. Our departing plane was close to the terminal, so we didn't have to take a shuttle bus. Policemen lined the entire way from the terminal to the air stairs, and as I passed by them, I felt like both a convict and a VIP.
We departed at 6:20 a.m., approximately 13 hours after we arrived in Brindisi. I had missed my connecting flight handily. When we landed in Istanbul, we got a sweet parking spot that put us near passport control. It was about 9:30 a.m. when we got inside the airport. But we were not yet free. We were assembled on the backside of the passport control area for more processing and waiting. We were separated from a mob of reporters by a wall of cops. When the time came, I was the first person dismissed. As I walked through the police line, I was engulfed by the reporters. I had nothing to say as they swarmed around me all the way down the corridor. After this, I was rushed to the lounge. There I had a shower, drank some whisky, sent e-mails, drank more whisky and watched TV.
Then I went to my gate and boarded without any drama. As I sat down, I realized that it was finally over. No more being herded around, no more police, no more reporters, no more security checks. It was a great feeling. I slept for most of the flight until we landed in Tel Aviv a bit after 4 p.m. In short, my first, and hopefully last, hijacking was basically just a 16-hour inconvenience.
Christopher Call, a member of the U.S. Foreign Service who is currently stationed in Tel Aviv, Israel, was returning from a short holiday in Albania when he found himself sharing a plane with a hijacker. |
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