Uli Derickson - Pamela A. Rice Story

Pamela Rice, owner of the first nail and tanning salon in Rhode Island, had been working too hard and decided a "TWA Getaway Vacation" to Greece would be a great way to relax and the ideal destination for her first trip abroad.

"She is a real workaholic," explained one of Pam's close friends. "She really needed a break from the shop."

After arranging for her parents to look after her 11-year-old son, Todd, Pam booked the two-week "Getaway" package that began on June 1st and included stops in Crete, Santorini, Mykonos and Athens.

Pam's vacation was all she thought it would be, but by the end of the two weeks, she was ready to go home, and was looking forward to smothering her son in hugs and kisses.

“The night before we were to leave for home, the tour guide asked me if I would be willing to take an earlier, morning flight rather than our scheduled afternoon flight since the afternoon flight was overbooked. I said, ‘Sure. No problem.’ I didn’t care. I was ready to go home, so leaving on an earlier flight was fine with me. What a twist of fate! And to think I wasn’t even supposed to be on that flight!”

The next morning, Pam arrived at the Hellenikon International Airport in plenty of time to board Flight 847 to Rome, with connections to New York.

While she stood in line waiting to go through security, she noticed that people were being waved through after only a cursory examination. “We weren’t checked through very carefully. My camera actually went through security.”

One passenger remembered one of the hijackers being waved through after emptying his pockets of a cigarette lighter and keys, even though the detector was still sounding.

When it came time to board the plane, Flight 847's passengers were directed to board via the back stairs. As Pam started up the stairs, she remembered a strange feeling coming over her. She turned to fellow passenger, Agnes Leder, a woman she had met on the TWA Getaway tour, and said, ‘I have an eerie feeling about this.’”

Pamela and Agnes found seats 23D and E, "about four or five rows from the back," and settled in for the short flight to Rome.

Ten minutes after the "fasten seatbelts" sign was turned off, Pam "saw the hijackers sprint up the aisle, but didn’t think anything of it at the time. It wasn’t until the first class passengers were herded back to coach with their hands held high above their heads that I knew there was trouble. I’ll never forget the looks on their faces – sheer terror. I remember thinking, 'Oh my God. This isn’t real! This can’t be happening!'

"The scene was chaotic. The hijackers were running up and down the aisles, banging heads down, shouting, screaming, and waving hand grenades. Some of the passengers were crying. It was then that I knew I was in a fight for my life.

"I went through a series of feelings. At first I was stunned, shocked. I remember I was so scared that I began to shake. Then I got mad! I remember Betty (flight attendant Elizabeth Howes) trying to calm the passengers saying, 'It’s going to be all right. We’ve got to cooperate. Everything’s going to be all right.'"

Uli Derickson, the flight's purser, announced over the intercom, "We are cooperating with these two gentlemen. Please keep your heads down.” She said the hijackers had a sackful of grenades and that they were prepared to blow up the plane.

One passenger, Patricia Weber, stated that the passengers were unnerved by the behavior of the hijackers. “They (hijackers) were hysterical, they were screaming.”

Dorothy Sullivan described one of the hijackers as having “a maniacal voice that made you very frightened. He stood at the front of the plane holding a grenade over his head shouting, ‘Head down! No speak! Me kill!’”

"One of the two hijackers (Hassan Izz-al-din) was definitely a crazy man," Pam claimed. "He had wild, bulging eyes. He was always hitting or screaming at someone. The man was crazy…wild…a firecracker."

Because Purser Uli Derickson spoke German, she was able to communicate with one of the non-English speaking hijackers who also spoke German. She became the sole communicator with the hijackers and acted as a buffer between the hijackers and the passengers. "Uli was an angel of God. She saved our lives she really did.

"Afterwards, when people told her that she was a hero, she said she was only doing what she had been trained to do," said Pamela. "I thought, 'No honey. You went above and beyond your training!'

"While Uli dealt with the hijackers, the other flight attendants worked with the passengers, reassuring us, comforting us, giving us strength that they probably didn’t feel themselves."

With emotions running high, Flight Attendant Elizabeth Howes noticed Pam's distress and tried to console her. "Betty patted me on the head and told me everything would be all right, that we would get out.

"Though they were as scared as we were, they smiled at us, and told us that it was going to be OK. We knew it wasn’t going to be, but their efforts were not only professional, they were humane. There was a real camaraderie between the passengers and flight attendants."

The passengers were ordered to bend forward at the waist, keep their heads down and place their hands on their heads. This was later called the "847 Position."

"We stayed in that position for days." Pamela remembered. "It was horrible. My neck and back have never been the same since. To this day they give me problems. I remember when doctors came on board the plane, they told us to rub the sides of our legs in an attempt to keep blood clots from forming."

Several of the male passengers surreptitiously passed a note suggesting a move to overpower the hijackers. However, when Uli heard of the plan, she warned the passengers against it, telling them not to try anything in midair for fear that the hijackers would pull the pins on their grenades and destroy the aircraft in flight.

Pam was relieved that the plan was abandoned. "I believe Uli did the right thing by discouraging a “take over.” There is no doubt in my mind that if someone had played cowboy and tried to retake the plane, we wouldn’t have gotten out alive."

Thinking back to that experience, Pam said, "The day I arrived in Greece, I sat down, and wrote a postcard to my parents and son, since I knew I probably wouldn’t have time to do it later during my vacation. The first day of the hijacking was the day my parents received the postcard.”

As Pam sat hunched over in her seat with her hands behind her head, and the hijackers patrolled the aisle, slapping people, and screaming orders, her family received the postcard which read, “Hi Mom, Dad and Todd, I’m having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.”