German jumbo jet hijacked
<N.Z. Pre** Association—Copyright) NEW DELHI, February 22. A Lufthansa jumbo jet airliner, hijacked early today shortly after taking off from New Delhi for Athens with 175 passengers, including the late Senator Robert Kennedy’s son, Joseph, and a crew of 14 aboard, landed safely at Aden eight hours later, and the women and children among the passengers were released.
Joseph Kennedy had been in India for a week after a visit to Bangladesh with his uncle and aunt, Senator and Mrs Edward Kennedy. Mrs Kennedy had accompanied her nephew to New Delhi after her husband had returned to the United States, but she left India before Joseph.
The hijackers—there were several of them—commandeered the aircraft about an hour after it had taken off from New Delhi.
Bombay air control authorities say that they received this message from it: “Our call-sign is Victorious Jidda. If you call us Lufthansa, we won’t answer you.” Presumably the hijackers were referring to Jidda, in Saudi Arabia, the port of entry for Mecca, the Moslem holy city. Lufthansa officials first reported that the hijackers had ordered the pilot to fly to Amman, the capital of Jordan.
Gt was on a desert airstrip near Amman that Palestinian guerrillas landed two jetliners in a hijacking in September, 1970, and demanded the release of Senator Robert Kennedy’s Arab assassin, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, in exchange for the passengers.) In Beirut, the Left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has denied that it was responsible for today’s hijacking. Exactly who was responsible is still in doubt Airline officials in New Delhi say that six of the people on the passenger manifest were from the Middle East—three from the Lebanon and three from the Trucial State of Oman, in the Persian Gulf. At the urgent request of
the United States! Britain has instructed her Ambassador in Aden to do all he can to persuade the hijackers to release the passengers and the aircraft.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32848, 23 February 1972, Page 17
Word Count
326German jumbo jet hijacked Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32848, 23 February 1972, Page 17
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