Southern Airways Flight 49 turned one in every of aviation historical past’s most extraordinary hijackings, sending a DC-9 throughout a number of nations throughout a tense 30-hour saga.
Demonstrating its ruggedness, endurance, and reliability, the McDonnell-Douglas DC-9, one of many authentic short-range, low-capacity twinjets together with the Sud-Aviation SE.210 Caravelle and the British Plane Company BAC-111, was subjected to a greater than 30-hour hijacking that took it from Canada to Cuba and quite a few US cities in between.
Piloted by Captain William R. Haas and First Officer Harold Johnson, the plane was commandeered on a multi-sector flight from Memphis to Miami with intermediate stops in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Orlando on 10 November 1972.
Accommodating 75 passengers, who have been attended to by two cabin personnel—Karen Ellis and Dionna Holman—plane 904, working as Flight 49, departed Memphis Worldwide Airport (MEM) at 1810 native time and routinely made the quick hop to Birmingham (BHM), the place it landed at 1850, disgorging 45 passengers, earlier than redeparting for the 15-minute sector to Montgomery (MGM). It will by no means arrive.
Because it started its descent from 10,000 ft, a black man rose from his seat and compelled his method into the cockpit with a gun as an alternative, demanding, “Head north, captain! This can be a hijacking!”
Unable to achieve any vacation spot of any appreciable distance, the plane was compelled to divert to Jackson Municipal Airport (JAN) in Mississippi, first to refuel. In the course of the temporary flight, at which period it was decided that there have been really three hijackers on board who have been later recognized as Melvin C. Cale, Henry D. Jackson, and Louis Moore, the male passengers have been ordered to take away all however their shorts in order that they may ensure that they hid no firearms, after which the flight attendants have been instructed to serve drinks to reinitiate a point of normality.
Touchdown on JAN’s Runway 15L shortly after 2000 native, the DC-9-10 decelerated and remained on it as a lone attendant refueled it, after which departed as soon as once more at 2035, now sure for Detroit, each vacation spot and goal of the hijackers’ rage.
Calls for, Diversions, and Rising Pressure
In the course of the subsequent climb, their motive was revealed. Having been unfairly handled within the Michigan metropolis, racially profiled, and arrested for crimes that they claimed that they didn’t commit, they now sought revenge. But to reduce rigidity within the cabin, they instructed the 2 flight attendants to serve the catered dinner of salad, steak, and potatoes, which they themselves consumed, together with copious quantities of alcoholic drinks. These apparently calmed them to the purpose the place they have been persuaded to allow the passengers to redress. What might now be thought of “routine” contained in the plane, nonetheless, didn’t prolong to the situations outdoors of it.
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) had closed because of heavy rain and fog, and when the DC-9 reached the realm, it was compelled to circle. It was throughout this time that the hijackers acknowledged their calls for, diminished to 10 and ten—that’s, $10 million and ten parachutes.
However two hours of circling resulted in no climate enchancment and solely depleted gas, forcing it to divert to close by Cleveland Hopkins Worldwide Airport (CLE), the place the ransom cash, the parachutes, and stimulants to maintain the crew alert may very well be flown for switch to the hijacked DC-9.
Touchdown at 0100, the plane was refueled, however was knowledgeable that the one carrying the provides, which might originate in Chicago, wouldn’t arrive in CLE for at the least two extra hours. Starting to really feel betrayed, the hijackers misplaced all belief after they glimpsed seven figures approaching the DC-9, regardless of emphatic orders on the contrary, and ordered it to take off instantly.
Already poised on the runway’s threshold with its engines operating all the time, it accelerated, and Captain Haas rotated it, enabling it to climb skyward. It was ordered to set course for Toronto.
A Lengthy Evening Over North America
The availability aircraft had intermittently taken off from Chicago and set its personal course for the Canadian vacation spot, the place it landed at 04:31. The Southern DC-9 maintained a round holding sample till that had occurred and was thus in a position to land on Runway 5R at Toronto Pearson Worldwide Airport (YYZ), parking at its threshold with its engines operating.
Management tower personnel, trying to fatigue the hijackers, delayed the dispatch of the gas truck, prompting tense, tedious bargaining that quickly erupted into impatient fury. They threatened to return to the sky if the truck weren’t instantly accessible, however with solely 7,300 kilos of gas on board, they’d not have even been in a position to attain the US border.
At 0537, it lastly materialized, however their now mollified mood simply as shortly reignited. The gas truck attendant, instructed to put on nothing however a showering swimsuit and produce the mounting listing of provides, which now included meals, water, espresso, and the stimulants, solely carried the cash, within the quantity of $500,000, transported from Chicago, whereas the remaining gadgets have been to not be discovered. Maybe the best anger-feeding truth, nonetheless, was the invention that the cash had not been offered by town of Detroit, which the hijackers deemed the rightful rectifier of their injustices. As an alternative, it had been equipped by Southern Airways itself.
Unhappy, they as soon as once more ordered the plane airborne, which occurred at 0615, and it headed south for what was supposed as its longest sector, a southern one to a vacation spot they believed was the one one the place they may obtain full satisfaction: Cuba.
As a result of the plane lacked the vary to cowl such a distance, it briefly landed in Lexington, Kentucky, at 0935, solely to take off once more 20 minutes later.
When negotiations for the $10 million as soon as once more failed, the three hijackers threatened to crash the airplane into the Atomic Vitality Fee amenities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and it was not till the early afternoon {that a} Learjet carrying the demanded ransom cash touched down at Chattanooga’s Lovell Discipline (CHA), enabling the Southern DC-9 to comply with carefully on its heels 35 minutes later. The requested gas truck, once more operated by a lone attendant, approached the plane with the lengthy listing of provisions that now included buckets of fried hen, sandwiches, gentle drinks, espresso, tea, beer, stimulants, bullet-proof vests, and riot helmets, enabling him to cross them to the primary officer by way of his proper cockpit window.
As soon as refueled, the plane retook off and climbed to 21,000 ft, the place the hijackers popped the stimulants into the crew members’ mouths. It was later revealed that they have been solely manufactured from sugar. But the elusively delivered ransom cash as soon as once more proved unsatisfactory, as a result of it was discovered that it had as soon as once more come from the airline itself. Proving that they sought revenge greater than the financial reward, they freely distributed it to the crew and the passengers. It did not serve their function.
Sustaining a southeasterly course at 33,000 ft, the DC-9 overflew Georgia and Florida and finally handed out over the Caribbean Sea, reaching Cuban airspace at 1600 native time on 11 November and touchdown on Runway 5 at Havana’s José Martí Worldwide Airport (HAV) 50 minutes later.
Havana, Orlando, and a Determined Escape
After it had parked, Jackson, who believed he could be granted sanctuary by Fidel Castro, disembarked and spoke to an area official, who claimed that Castro himself was unavailable (although he was really within the tower, observing the state of affairs the entire time).
Surmising that he wouldn’t be given the pleasant welcome he had envisioned, he reboarded the plane and demanded ample gas for an escape, nevertheless it was not shortly offered, and solely after the primary officer himself had deplaned to oversee the refueling was it in a position to take off at 1900 — 21 hours into its ordeal.
Making the quick hop to Key West, Florida, to prime off its tanks on the Boca Chica Naval Air Station, it was as soon as once more within the air, the hijackers now saying its new vacation spot, which they believed would offer the sanctuary that Cuba had not been in a position to: Switzerland.
The DC-9-10’s vary was solely about 1,500 miles, whereas the Atlantic stretched for greater than twice that. If it continued on its current course, Captain Haas defined to the hijackers, it might run out of gas, ditch into the ocean, and all would fall prey to shark swimming pools, even when they survived the precise plunge into the water. He in the end satisfied them to return to Orlando, the place they may switch to a long-range, quad-engine Air Pressure jet, suitably geared up with overwater navigation, crossing the Atlantic by the use of New York, Newfoundland, Eire, and Nice Britain.
The DC-9 landed at Orlando’s McCoy Jetport (MCO) at 2115, a touchdown that might later show to be the start of the tip.
A Last Flight and an Not possible Touchdown
A gas truck parked at its finish, and for the primary time because the ordeal had began the earlier night, the hijackers permitted the engines to be turned off to simply accept their vitally wanted gas, separately.
Invisible to the hijackers due to the darkness, nonetheless, FBI brokers had positioned themselves on parallel Runway 36L, and so they started taking pictures on the DC-9’s tires so as to incapacitate it. The hijackers themselves retaliated, opening the cockpit home windows and returning hearth.
Now with the agency conviction that that they had been betrayed, they ordered First Officer Johnson to face up and pumped a bullet into his proper arm, after which demanded that the captain take off, regardless of the tire injury and Johnson’s wounded situation.
What they demanded, Haas felt, was unattainable, if not suicidal. However, just about assured loss of life by the grenade held solely inches from his face, he was left with out selection and even purpose: he superior the throttles.
Jolting down the runway at ever-mounting velocity and spitting fire-threatening sparks, the twinjet slowly and sluggishly accelerated, its steel rims, like flints, turning into glowingly scorching and ejecting rubber shards from the no-longer existent tires that have been ingested by the engines. Rotating, throughout which the nostril wheel was elevator-coaxed off the floor, the DC-9 sat on its essential wheel rims earlier than, impossibly, taking to the sky, surmounting friction and velocity, then disappearing into the darkness, left solely briefly seen till its anti-collision lights disappeared.
Survival in Havana and Lasting Penalties
Throughout its climb out, the hijackers plotted their subsequent plan of action, contemplating the reception that they had obtained in each Havana and Orlando and concluding that the previous had been decidedly friendlier than the latter. It was due to this fact to the previous that they now elected to go. It will, with out query, be the plane’s closing vacation spot, and plenty of parts indicated that it might not essentially be safely reached.
No tires remained on the principle wheels, leaving solely friction—and probably hearth—inflicting metal-to-surface contact. One of many engines was severely low on oil, and a few of its fan blades had been bent by the ingested rubber. The primary officer was bleeding, in ache, and solely half-conscious. The plane couldn’t be pressurized, leaving it to cruise at altitudes no larger than 10,000 ft. The 2 pilots, malnourished and dehydrated, had not slept for 48 hours and had been pushed to their emotional, bodily, and psychological limits, having been below the fixed risk of loss of life. And so they now confronted their second touchdown in a communist nation with an incapacitated airplane.
Conscious of Flight 49’s return, Castro ordered that the airport be ready for its emergency touchdown and alerted hospitals of the approaching arrival of the wounded. However even foaming the runway wouldn’t help the state of affairs: there was inadequate substance accessible to take action.
Because the flight attendants ready the passengers for the touchdown, the hijackers, for the primary time, realized the severity of the state of affairs that they had created. Whereas that they had frequently threatened the protection and lives of everybody on board, they have been now in the identical state of affairs, and their weapons might do nothing to resolve it. They symbolically surrendered them to the 2 attendants as verification of this truth.
At 2315, the lights of Havana turned seen by way of the cockpit home windows. Though flight deck instrumentation indicated that the touchdown gear had efficiently prolonged, Captain Haas was not sure whether or not it was within the locked place because of injury sustained throughout the Orlando shootout and takeoff, prompting him to descend to 300 ft and request visible tower verification. He additionally lowered a periscopic gadget within the passenger cabin to additional confirm their place.
Approaching HAV’s 12,000-foot-long, light-lined Runway 23, the passengers now of their crash positions, the twinjet shed its remaining altitude and handed over its threshold. The engines have been throttled again, and the ear-piercing emission from its Pratt and Whitney JT8D turbofans died down.
Flaring, the plane settled onto the concrete with its essential wheel steel rims, from which sparks and smoke erupted upon contact. Violently jolting, it settled and decelerated till the plane was drained of its momentum and got here to a full cease, enabling the passengers to evacuate by way of the overwing emergency exits, which had been opened earlier than landing, and go away the plane for the primary time in some 29 hours. The molten steel was doused with fire-retarding foam.
All miraculously survived, regardless of some accidents. The hijackers have been arrested. The captain was met by Fidel Castro, who gave him a bear hug. The primary officer was carried off the plane in a stretcher, and he, together with the wounded passengers, was taken to town’s hospital, whereas the rest of the passengers and crew members have been handled to a dinner within the terminal.
The three hijackers served eight years in a Cuban jail in cells that Castro described as “four-by-four-by-four foot” in dimension, however all have been subsequently extradited to the USA. Cale and Moore served an extra 20 years there, whereas Jackson served one other 5 over that for his taking pictures of the primary officer.
Because of the 30-hour ordeal, the FAA carried out tighter safety measures at 531 home airports, ensuing within the obligatory screening of all passengers, crew members, and their baggage. Flight crews have been additionally rigidly skilled for skyjacking conditions. Relations with Cuba quickly improved, since Castro demonstrated that he would settle for no tolerance for such makes an attempt and refused to grant any immunity or freedom to those that sought sanctuary by using such excessive strategies.
Each the crew’s experience and the DC-9’s design integrity have been credited with guaranteeing the passengers’ final security and survival. Though the circumstances the Southern Airways one was subjected to exceeded these for which it had been licensed, it demonstrated two of its authentic design targets—specifically, ruggedness and reliability. And whereas the hijackers’ authentic function of alerting the world to the alleged injustices that occurred within the Metropolis of Detroit was profitable, the best way through which they sought to take action—inflict the identical remedy on harmless others that they have been allegedly subjected to—solely resulted in their very own lack of freedom.
