Elizabeth Howes, a TWA flight attendant with over 22 years of service, was really looking forward to her next overseas flight. She had arranged to work her next flight with two very good friends, Hazel Hesp, and Helen Sheahan. Though all three had flown separately with one another, they had never flown together as a group. With some advanced planning, they managed to draw the same assignment, a trip that would take them from New York, to Athens, then to Rome and on to Tel Aviv. Little could they have known that their highly anticipated trip would turn into a nightmare flight jetting back and forth across the Mediterranean aboard a hijacked plane.

The assignment began on Thursday, June 13th, 1985, when Elizabeth and her fellow flight attendants boarded a 747 out of New York with a layover in Athens. On the morning of June 14th, the crew of Flight 847 assembled in the lobby of their hotel before boarding the crew bus for the short trip to Athens’ Hellenikon Airport.

Because a previous flight from Athens to New York had been canceled, Flight 847 took on more passengers than were originally booked, bringing the total to 145. Accommodating the extra passengers caused the flight to leave Athens more than an hour late.

Elizabeth and Helen Sheahan were stationed in the back of the plane; Judy Cox, another friend of Elizabeth's, was working the center section, and Hazel Hesp was working in first class with Uli Derickson.

Elizabeth was assisting a passenger in the rear of the plane when she heard a sound like breaking glass coming from the aft lavatory. Peter Hill, a passenger sitting in the last row of the plane, heard the same "loud sound of breaking glass." Elizabeth looked toward the bathroom and saw a man step out of the lavatory carrying a leather briefcase. She watched him return to his seat in the back row.

Elizabeth immediately went back to the bathroom looking for broken glass and found none. After a thorough inspection of the area, and finding nothing amiss, she turned her attention back to her boarding passengers.

Elizabeth remembers the two men sitting in the back row with Peter Hill because they stood out from the other passengers. "Yes I saw them, and they did look odd," Elizabeth remembered. "They were wearing suits with ties. Hassan Izz-al-din was sitting in the center seat with a leather briefcase on his lap."

The plane took off from Athens for Rome an hour late, leaving at approximately 9:55 a.m. After the "Fasten Seatbelts" sign was turned off, Elizabeth and Helen rose from their jump seats to prepare to serve breakfast when Elizabeth heard Peter Hill shout, "What the hell is going on?" She turned, looked down the aisle, and saw two men running full-speed towards first class waving a gun and grenades. "Oh my God," Elizabeth said to Helen, "I think we're being hijacked."

Up in the first class section, Uli and Hazel were retrieving service aprons and flight shoes from a forward closet when a hand grenade was thrust in front of Hazel's face, and Uli was kicked in the chest slamming her hard against the bulkhead.

Elizabeth watched the two hijackers bully Uli, demanding that she give them the key to the cockpit door. Elizabeth immediately began ringing the hostess call button, frantically signaling the cockpit of trouble in the cabin.

After the terrorists forced their way into the cockpit, one of the hijackers came back down the aisle pushing four of the flight attendants to the back of the plane. “They pushed and shoved me and had a grenade in front of my face and pushed me to the back,” Elizabeth said. “I asked if we were being hijacked and they said yes, we were. We didn’t think we would come off alive.”

When Uli came onto the PA system explaining that the plane was being hijacked, Elizabeth said that "everyone was in a state of disbelief."

With all of the flight attendants gathered in the back of the plane, a hijacker began interrogating them. "One of the hijackers pulled the five of us flight attendants to the back and asked where we were from. Helen (Sheahan) was from Ireland, Hazel (Hesp) was from England, I was from Wales, and Uli (Derickson) was from Germany. Only Judy (Cox) was from America.

"He then asked us why we would work for an American company. We told him that TWA was a wonderful company to work for.

"Then the hijacker asked if we remembered the truck that was driven into the Marine barracks in Lebanon, blowing it up. He said, 'That was my cousin. My cousin did that. He died for his country. I am like my cousin. I will die for my country too.' There is nothing more dangerous than a young fanatic."

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Elizabeth Howes, a TWA flight attendant assigned to Flight 847, shares with us her 36-hour nightmare as a hostage aboard the commandeered plane.

"The hijacker asked if we remembered the truck that was driven into the Marine barracks in Lebanon, blowing it up. He said, 'That was my cousin. My cousin did that. He died for his country. I am like my cousin. I will die for my country too.'
There is nothing more dangerous than a young fanatic."
Elizabeth Howes - November 4, 2007