Flight 648

FLIGHT 648

Wings of Blood

 

(An Inner Story)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tarak Ghosh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Sonnenstraße 23

80331 Munich

Germany

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title Page

 

Flight 648, Wings of Blood (True Crime) , a non-fiction by Tarak Ghosh

 

 

Other titles from the same author

 

 

 

Flight 648 by Tarak Ghosh

Non-fiction

 

Other titles from the author

 

Beyond the Space (Romance, Paperback & E-book), I Saw My Killer (Romance, Paperback & E-book), Castle Waits (Romance, Paperback & E-book) Silent Cockpit ( Non-fiction),  Orphanage, (Paperback),  Flight 73( Aviation Mystery, Non-fiction), I Am Suzan (Romance, Paperback & E-book), Silent Shriek (Non-Fiction), Hunger Never Fades Away (Romantic Fiction Paperback & E-book), Lucy (Collection of short stories, E-book), Hell Flower (Sci-Fi, Paperback & E-book), The Snake Woman (Sci-Fi, Paperback & E-book), Lust & Poison (Sci-Fi, Paperback & E-book), Indian Meditation (Paperback & E-book)

 

 

ISBN: 978-3-7487-6407-6

 

Cover Image: Pixabay

Cover Design: T. Kashyap

 

 

First E-book Edition: October, 2020

Second Edition: July, 2023

 

 

 

 

E-book published by

 

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Sonnenstraße 23

80331 Munich

Germany

 

 

 

 

Dedication

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dedication

 

This book is dedicated to the memory of those innocent passengers who were killed in the hijacked EgyptAir Flight 648 on November, 1985.

Acknowledgment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am grateful to the Judicial Department of the USA and Malta, and the newspapers published from Malta and the USA. I have taken information and articles from the newspapers and Wikipedia to build the situation and scene. I am also grateful to Major Tony Abela, the technical advisor to Prime Minister Dr. Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici and his Cabinet, Carlos M. Pérez Major, United States Arm, Mrs. Jackie Pflug, Ben Weidlich of the Collegiate Times and Civia Tamarkin for their valuable articles and interviews that have helped me to write this non-fiction.

I am thankful to the following newspapers, magazines, persons & public domains

 

From the Author

 

 

 

 

Flight 648, Wings of Blood

 

Thirty-eight years ago, on November 23, 1985, Egyptair Flight 648, bound from Athens to Cairo, was hijacked and forced to land in Malta by three Palestine members of Abu Nidal.

            On that day Flight 648 took off on its Athens to Cairo route as usual. Ten minutes after takeoff, three Palestine members of Abu Nidal, carrying hand grenades and guns hijacked the plane and forced it to land in Malta.  Libya was the original destination of the hijackers, but due to a lack of fuel, Malta was chosen as a more suitable option. There, the five Israeli and American passengers were singled out and shot in the back of their heads by Omar Rajaq, the hijacker. A 24-hour hijack came to an end after a two-minute commando operation that brought hell to Luqa airport and put Malta on the map for the worst-ever airplane massacre before the September 11 attacks 16 years later. No one would have thought that on 23rd November 1985, something so horrible would occur and get Malta involved in the dealings.

            However, despite Rezaq's horrific cold-blooded actions, the bloodbath had yet to start. In the Egyptian commandos' raid, 57 passengers – including pregnant women, children, and crews – suffocated from the fumes that enveloped the aircraft when the commandos placed a bomb underneath the fuselage to break into the hold. The Egyptair Flight 648 hijacking was major. But it differed markedly from the TWA and Achille Lauro hijackings in that it has left many more than the usual number of questions unanswered. Such as…

            What role did the task force play in the preparations for the storming of the plane? Why did the Maltese prevent the Americans, who might have supplied the Egyptian commando with much-needed technical know-how and probably saved many of the 57 lives lost in the attack, from arriving in time?

            Was the Egyptian paratroop commando as inefficient as it appeared or did it act based on wrong or misleading information? Why did only one of the three, four, or five Egyptian security men on board resist the hijack attempt? Why did the other Egyptian air Marshalls fail even to try and rescue their colleague?

            Did the Egyptian crew, as some survivors charge, cooperate, willingly or unwillingly, with the hijackers in dragging out of their seats for execution some of the passengers, including the seriously injured Israeli?

            Where did the weapons used by the hijackers come from?" Were they on board the plane when it landed at Athens from Cairo before it was forced to fly to Malta, or were they smuggled on board at Athens Airport?

 

            Who were the hijackers, what did they want and who was behind them? During the 24 hours, they controlled the plane but made no political demands and said nothing which could reveal their identities or political ideology.

Only two of the five passengers shot in the head by Razaq died from their wounds. Patrick Baker, Tamar Artzi, and  Jackie Pflug all lived, while Nitzan Mendelson and Scarlett Rogencamp died. The other 57 passengers and crews had died during the commando operation.

 

 

 

 

Tarak Ghosh

July, 2023

 

Chapter 1 A Journey Towards Death

 

 

            Ellinikon International Airport in Greece is located 4.3 miles south of Athens, and just west of Glyfada. It was named after the village of  Elliniko (Elleniko), now a suburb of Athens. The airport had an official capacity of 11 million passengers per year but had served 13.5 million passengers during its last year of operations.

            The airport was built in 1938. Germans invaded Greece in 1941, and Kalamaki Airfield (as the site was then known) was used as a Luftwaffe air base during the occupation. After World War II, the Greek government allowed the United States to use the airport from 1945 until 1993. Known as Hassani Airport in 1945, it was used by the United States Army Air Forces as early as 1 October 1945, as a base of operations for Air Transport Command flights between Rome, Italy, and points in the Middle East. By agreement with Greece, the USAF operated out of the airport for well over four decades. In 1988, Greece decided not to extend the arrangement, and the USAF concluded its operations there in 1991.[5] The airport was the base of operations for the Greek national carrier Olympic Airways.

            EgyptAir, originally named Misr Airwork, was founded in 1932. It later became the first airline in the Middle East and Africa and the world's seventh carrier at the time to join the International Air Transport Association. The airline began international flights in 1934, with service between Cairo and the Palestinian region.

            From 1949 to 1957, as it expanded its international operations, the airline shortened its name to Misrair. Beginning in 1957, it was known as United Arab Airlines, finally changing to EgyptAir in 1971.

 

            It was 23 March 1985. the passengers of Flight 648 were waiting eagerly in the Ellington International Airport lounge to reach their destination, Cairo.  EgyptAir Flight 648 was a regularly scheduled international flight between Athens Ellingkon InterAirport in Greece and Cairo International Airport in Egypt. It was a  Boeing 737-200  airliner, registered SU-AYH, servicing the flight. The Egyptair Flight 648, carrying 92 passengers and 6 crew members, took off from the Athens airport, bound for Cairo.at 08:09 UTC.

            Most of the passengers were Egyptians, the next Greek and Israeli nationals.  Lupita" Pallás Téllez was sitting in the airport lounge, lazily watching the hustle-bustle of the passengers. She was a known face to the Mexican Tv and movie audiences. But, here no one looked at her as if she was a common person, not a movie celeb. She let a sigh. Her daughter, a 26-year-old young girl Laila Guadalupe Ortiz de Pinedo Pallas was sitting beside her. Lupita turned to her and said, "Laila." Laila didn't respond. Her eyes were fixed on the page of a magazine that she bought minutes ago from a magazine-stand, outside the airport.

            Lupita stared at her for a moment, then she scanned around and saw no one of importance; instead she noticed three young men rigidly fixed in the seat across from her. Her scrutinizing eyes reached the first man's face; she was taken aback by his expression. He looked extremely nervous. She moved her eyes from the man's face and looked at the second person, sitting just beside him. She could not understand how someone could look so emotionless.  The third looked as if he had never flown before. He fidgeted and repeatedly scanned the area. Lupita noticed a briefcase, lying beside their feet. 

            She moved her eyes from the trio and looked at her watch. Suddenly she heard a male voice. It heard a whispering sound.  She looked back and heard the tall man among the trio talking in a low voice to a man, standing in front of them. Lupita tried to follow the language they were talking, about but couldn't understand anything. Their conversation was in Arabic and she didn't know the language at all.

            But there was something in their expression that made her feel uncomfortable, she couldn't explain why.

            A woman sat alongside countless strangers at the airport. She anxiously tapped her toes on the tiled floor, eyes flicking between the ground and the hallway. She was Jackie Pflug, a 30-year-old woman from the US. She was working as a special education teacher at the Cairo American College, prepping Egyptian high school students for college in America. She had come to Athens to attend a volleyball tournament with a group of students. She was flying to Cairo from a weekend in Athens, a day before her husband and the team. Jackie and Pflug had been in Egypt only a few weeks when they traveled to Athens with the school volleyball team to attend a tournament. Her husband, Scott Pflug, who also taught at the same school, was not on the plane that day. Scott planned to join her by taking a flight the next day.

            Pflug went to the counter where she was informed that the flight could be delayed further. It was a busy Saturday evening.  She stared at the crowd, listening to Bruce Springsteen's  'Born in the U.S.A.' playing on her Walkman. Her mind suddenly went back to her young days that she was going to forget. Sitting in a foreign airport, she could see her past.

            Jackie Pflug, her maiden name was Jackie Nink. She was born to a working-class family in Texas and the second of three daughters of her parents. She got her bachelor's from Sam Houston State University and her master's from the University of Houston.  She had nurtured the dream of working in a foreign country.  When she was 29, she thought to fulfill her dream. She wanted to live somewhere where it snows because she had never seen snow before.

            After attending an international job fair for teachers in New York, Jackie was offered a teaching position in Stavanger, Norway. She immediately accepted the dream offer. In Norway, Jackie met and eventually married Scott Pflug, a 26-year-old physical education teacher from Minnetonka, Minn. After the wedding, the newly-married couple accepted two-year contracts to teach at an American school in Cairo.

            Lupita lost herself somewhere for a moment. She came to her senses and could hear Laila's voice - "Mom. Mom, mom, mom, mom." The girl tugged on her mother's arms to get her attention.

"What baby?"

"Time to leave, Mom."

            Lupita looked across the lounge. It was going empty. She tried to find the three strange men, sitting across her. There was no one. They had already left the lounge.

            She started to walk over to the gate, pulling Laila behind her. As she walked ahead, she kept trying to kick off the faces of the trio from her mind. She looked behind her and discovered the three men walking in slow motion. Their faces looked like stone-made faces. She went ahead hurriedly.  Her mind was murmuring –'Something unusual is going to happen.' She shook her head and entered the aircraft. The flight was late. It had been delayed to wait for a connecting flight.

            Two flight attendants went through the monotonous routine of demonstrating how to fix the seat belts, the location of the life jackets under the seats, pointing out the emergency exits and the on-floor lighting, and so on.

            "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your first flight attendant. While we prepare the cabin, pay attention as we use a checklist to review some very important safety information with you. At this time, extinguish all cigarettes; bring seatbacks to the upright position; stow all tray tables; make sure seatbelts are low and tight about you. Take the safety card from the seat pocket and look at the protective positions shown on the card. With your seatbelt low and tight, lean forward and grab your ankles. If you cannot grab your ankles, cross your arms, lean forward with the palms of your hands against the seatback in front of you, and press your forehead against the back of your hands."

            Flight attendants, check passenger protective positions. Once completed it was a trip down the aisle to check that the passenger's seat belts were fastened and that their seats were in an upright position before returning to their galley to check that all of the food trolleys were stowed fast ready for takeoff.

            From her seat on the plane, Lupita looked out of the small window, down at the airport getting smaller and smaller below her. The bright lights of Greece would eventually fade into the night. Laila propped her head back onto the headrest and closed her eyes. She couldn't imagine what was waiting for them. How a smooth journey could turn into a journey of death. They didn't know that it was the same aircraft that had been diverted by Grumman F-14 Tomcat Fighter jets of the U.S. Navy a month earlier, after the Achille Lauro hijacking on 7 October.

Chapter 2 Flight Path Changed

 

 

Everyone boarded, the doors closed and Flight 648 was ready to go. The aircraft started rolling down the runway. Soon the wheels were off the ground. The wheels retracted and the floor started vibrating from the mechanism. Jackie was looking around. She could see two Arabs, one of them in the grey suit, sitting nearby whom she met in the lounge before. Their eyes were moving from passenger to passenger as if they were scanning a printed paper. They were talking in a lower voice. 

            Jackie moved her eyes from them and back to her memories. The faint hum of the engines in the background took her to the past. Minutes after the soft "Ding", came and a flight attendant announced in the microphone, "Passengers, the seatbelt sign has been turned off, you are free to move about the cabin."

            Ioannis Houliaris, a sailor in the Greek navy, spent the summer in Greece.  Now, he headed to Cairo to catch a second aircraft to Japan where he was to board a ship for his next tour of duty. He looked aimlessly at the passengers and then closed his eyes.

            Minutes after, Jackie Pflug could hear a flight attendant's voice. She turned her head and noticed the men who were talking in lower voices. The flight attendant asked one of them, "Whose briefcase is this, and why it's here?"

"No, it's not his, leave it alone!" the second man yelled.

"Well, whoever it is, you need to put it under the seat in front of you," the flight attendant responded.

            It was 9 pm, and as the flight attendants were handing out

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Tarak Nath Ghosh
Bildmaterialien: Free images from Pixabay.com
Lektorat: Tarak Ghosh
Satz: T. Kashyap
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 10.11.2020
ISBN: 978-3-7487-6407-6

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Widmung:
This book is dedicated to the memory of the diseased passengers of Flight 648