Fifty years ago, terrorists hijacked a Swissair plane

Fifty years ago, terrorists hijacked a Swissair plane, two crew members tell us

In 1970, members of the “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” hijacked three planes in the Jordanian desert. The Swiss hostages had to remain in captivity for a week and fear for their lives.

annika bangerter / ch media

Flames lit up the dark night in front of the Swissair DC-8’s narrow cockpit windows. Beta Steinegger and Jean Michel Weiss didn’t know where they were. Actually, the flight attendant should have said goodbye to her passengers in New York at the time. Instead, they headed for a makeshift landing pad. The fires were used to signal the pilot.

The sand churned as the wheels of the machine hit. There was a smell of burning, coats and hats flew through the air from the luggage racks that were open at the time, milk and fruit juices beaten on the floor, broken dishes. Steinegger recalls:

Shortly after the slides hung perforated and evacuated from the machines, the emergency lights went out. The first night in the desert broke for 157 people on the Swissair plane. On board as hostages.

Fifty years ago, members of the Palestinian organization “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” hijacked three planes with a total of more than 400 people to Zerqa in Jordan. They threatened to fly Swissair, British BOAC and American TWA planes if the jailed Palestinian freedom fighters were not released. Also the three who were imprisoned in Regensdorf, Zurich.

Hygienic conditions were precarious, water was scarce

When they took office on September 6, 1970, Steinegger and Weiss had no idea that they would be involved in the Middle East conflict.

You were working economy class when first class shouts began to sound. Weiss rushed forward and saw a man holding a gun to a colleague’s neck. “Shortly after, a woman was standing in the cockpit with a hand grenade and forced the pilot to fly into Jordan,” Weiss says.

The air pirate announced that he would not go to New York as planned and that everyone should follow his instructions. At the moment there was no more information. It was the beginning of an exhausting wait. Especially for passengers, as Weiss says:

It became emotionally difficult, for example when a flight attendant realized that he was going to miss his own wedding or when someone else was in poor health. “But they were all aware of the great responsibility they have with the passengers and they all worked. There was no room for great fears, we had our hands full “.

Hygienic conditions were poor and food and water were in short supply. The crew cleaned the aircraft with their clothes brushes, stood guard in front of the water container, distributed flatbreads or cleaned the toilets. They were permanently clogged because the shredder would not work without electricity.

Weiss, then 26, used clothes hangers to push the feces and tear the Torah pages into the tank. The Jewish passengers got rid of them there in an initial panic. Weiss says:

The women and children were able to leave the plane on Monday, the men and crew had to remain on board. The hijackers placed explosives on the doors and patrolled the machine armed. The mood among the passengers has never changed, Weiss says:

Beta Steinegger agrees. Some passengers were more afraid than others, he says. The cabin crew took great care of her and tried to calm her down.

“When I think about the kidnapping today, the first thing that comes to mind is this solidarity. We did not know each other before and we grew together until we became a community of destiny, ”he says. A community that had to stay in the machine for a week at over 50 degrees Celsius during the day and needed all the blankets at night to sleep in the cold desert night.

Shortly before his release, the situation reached a critical point.

Negotiations between the Palestinians and Switzerland, the United States, Britain, Israel and Germany dragged on, although it was clear that the “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” was willing to go to extremes. Half a year earlier, one of its bombs exploded in the hold of a Swissair plane, causing it to crash over Würenlingen. Steinegger says:

Rumors spread late Friday that the Israelis were planning an attack. The Palestinians dug trenches throughout the day. “There was a high risk that the kidnappers would have blown us up in an attack,” he says. That night, the then 35-year-old wrote two letters: one to her husband and one to her family.

The next day, the redeeming news: passengers and crew were able to leave the aircraft. It broke out without people. Weeks later, the Palestinian attackers were released from the Swiss prison. For their work in the desert, Jean Michel Weiss and Beta Steinegger each received 36 overtime hours and a two-week break from Swissair. No care team was waiting for them in Kloten, but rather a Swissair employee who informed them that they would receive new uniforms.

Both Weiss and Steinegger continued to work. He would not have been afraid on his future missions, Weiss says:

And Beta Steinegger was more attentive to her work than before. If there was a piece of luggage abandoned before departure, it was handed over to the ground crew outside.