Highjack of El-Al Aircraft

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Highjack of El-Al Aircraft

23 July – 31 August 1968

The Algiers Diary

By Jacques Meyrav

Foreword

This diary was written in the Algerian prison following the highjack of the El-Al aircraft, in the month of July 1968 by Palestinian terrorists

The crew on this flight was: Capt. – Oded Abbarbanel, Co-Pilot – Maoz Poraz, Trainee Pilot – Avner Slapak, Flight Engineer – Yonah Lichtman, Senior Purser – Myself (Jacques Meyrav), Senior hostess – Judy Abend, Senior Sreward – Nir Ran, Steward – Yaacov Weiss, Stewardess – Nira Avnieli, Stewardess – Edna Bachrach.

As a matter of fact, I was scheduled to fly to New York, but as I had an exam at the Tel-Aviv University the next day, I switched with another Purser for a "quickie" to Rome, to ensure my presence at the exam, the "quickie" that lasted 40 days…. And the rest is history!

By coincidence, the day before the flight, my good friend Marcel Louza, had just arrived in Israel with baby Sasha and his new wife Wendy, upon resuming a contract in Zambia, Africa; and wanted to meet me the following afternoon. One can imagine his frustration when I didn't show up as he was not aware that I had been hijacked.

Afraid it might be found and confiscated, I wrote my diary in shorthand (in Hebrew) in a small note pad I had at the time. Using a candle for light, I waited till everyone was asleep, and then hid my notes in my underwear.

Upon our liberation and return to Israel, news of my diary came out and major newspapers wanted to publish it; I was told however by Mordechai Ben Ari, then the President of El-Al , I was not allowed to do so and this was an order of the Israeli internal security! No explanation was given.

Hence it remained forgotten for 42 years!

Recently, upon writing the bio of each one of the "Hamishia" or "Quintet", as we call ourselves, 5 guys, including myself, with a friendship of more than 60 years and building a site for that matter (www.storyof5friends.com/5friends) I decided to bring the diary into the open and rewrite it.

So, after many… many years, while I still don't understand why it was not allowed to publish my diary in the first place, finally, I bring it here, as it was written then word for. Occasionally, I have added more details as they came to mind while copying.

I hope you will find it of interest.

Sincerely

Jacques Meyrav (May 2010)

The diary in its original form and size

23 July 1968

Taking off from Rome, just past midnight, the aircraft is not full, I send the cabin attendants to quickly serve the midnight snack due to the late hour, allowing the passengers to have some rest.

I'm at the aft of the cabin, helping the cabin attendants load the serving wagon, when the senior hostess Judy Abend, runs towards me, pale, shaking like a leaf. I'm convinced that she is in a fit of some sort, when she starts stuttering almost incomprehensible words:" terrorists… highjack… guns… grenades…"! I am in a total shock and run to the front of the cabin to find out what's happening. In the middle of the aisle, a terrorist with a gun in one hand and a hand grenade (without pin) in the other shoves the gun into my belly and shouts "sit down or me shoot!!" I try to explain to him that I am the purser of the flight and being in charge and have to know what's happening. Meanwhile the cockpit door opens and the co-pilot, Maoz Poraz is thrown out, his head, face and shirt covered with blood; behind him, the flight engineer, Yonah Lichtman, rather "cool" under the circumstances and says to me: " There's nothing we can do Jacques, 2 terrorists are in the cockpit armed with guns and grenades! Come, let's look after Maoz". Trembling with frustration and helplessness, I help Maoz, together with one of the passenger, El-Al employee, Elkana Shemen, and dragged him to the end of the cabin. I immediately instruct the attendants to open the emergency first aid kit and try to stop the blood flowing from Maoz head. He starts to recover a bit and tells us he was shot three times in his head! With all that, he takes from his pocket his Air force pilot certificate and asks us to hide it somewhere before it is found by the terrorists. We shove it between the seats upholstery, hoping it will work.

In the meantime the 3rd terrorist is strolling the aisle, looking extremely satisfied with himself, a gun in one hand and a grenade in the other. I notice again that the pin was absent and he seems to hold on strongly over the lever. Very relaxed, he points his gun toward stewardess Nira Avnieli and announces that when all this is finished, he will certainly "marry her"! It's a surrealistic scene altogether. Yonah Lichtman, the flight Engineer, whispers to me that according to the bearing ordered by the terrorists in the cockpit, we are heading toward the North African coast. I'm somewhat relieved by this news, as it was not Syria, where our POW suffered horrible tortures during the 6 day war.

I start talking to the terrorist in Arabic, and explain to him that as we are now in his hands it would be wise to put the grenade pin back in its place, since an explosion in a pressurized aircraft would blow it to pieces. Somewhat surprised by my knowledge of Arabic and noticing immediately that it had an Egyptian accent, he suddenly becomes somewhat friendly and tells me that he had lost the grenade pin!

Trying to find a solution, believing the only one is to tie the grenade lever to it with some kind of rope. I think about the thin metal strip attached to the top of the sick bags in the seat pockets and

hurry to gather a few. We then tie them together to create a long string, strong enough, so the "gentleman" could bind it around the lever and the grenade.

I then ask his permission to let the cabin crew collect the trays that are still on the folding tables in front of the passengers, who are holding their hands over their heads all that time!

He consents and finally allows the passengers to put their hands down. We sit, and wait for further developments.

Behind my seat is a young South-American couple, probably Jewish; the woman is crying her eyes out! I try to calm her by telling her that we are diverted to a somewhat normal country and that they will surely release all foreign passengers. She looks at me and says:" I know that, I'm crying about you! Who knows when they will release you if at all?"

02.45 a.m., I already know we are landing in Algiers, what a relief! Indeed, Algeria is a country which absorbed a lot of French culture for many years! Let's hope that some of this still exists!

Landing in Algiers – our aircraft is surrounded by armored cars of the Security Police Force (similar to the French CRS). Stairs are brought up and the crew is summoned to disembark. I take my purser's bag and ask one of the officers about the passengers, "It's not your business now!" is the abrupt answer.

We are taken to a large room which looks like a flight dispatch office.

We are surrounded by armed policemen with a somewhat threatening look, watching every move, (even when going to the bathroom). A policeman escorted us and guarded the door, until we got back.

Time goes by, dawn is breaking through. We are still sitting, waiting in total darkness, wondering about our fate. Hunger creeps after so many hours without food and the situation is quite stressful. Suddenly I remember that I had bought 2 big boxes of the delicious "Bacci" chocolate in Rome, to bring back home. I immediately take them out of my bag, (making the policemen rather nervous) and share the chocolates with the famished crew (I even offer some to our guards, but they refuse).

Sometime around noon, an officer comes by and announces in French that soon we will be taken care of. I approach him and complain about being left for hours without news and also without food! He turns to me and say pompously: "Whoever wants to conquer the world must learn how to suffer!!"

We all had a good laugh when I translate this to the guys.

38 hours without sleep (including the day before the night flight). We are taken under heavy guard to a kind of barrack belonging to the security police base, close to the airport.

It is a long shack with a dividing wall and bunk beds on both sides. The mattresses are made of straw with army blankets on top.

We are told that the female cabin crew should occupy one side and the men the other. Although dead tired, I cannot close my eyes. In the end, we all fall asleep in our

uniforms. Most of the night, the guards are "patrolling" the barrack, to prevent any "mingling" between males and females!

24 July 68 - second day in Jail

Early in the morning a sergeant major comes in with a pot of coffee, "baguette" and an almost rotten chocolate bar; he announces that right after breakfast, officers from the base will come for interrogation.

We share the bread, drink the so called coffee but throw the chocolate bar out the window. Minutes afterward, 3 security police officers come in and summon us to come one by one to a side room outside the barrack, with our belongings. I have no choice but to act as an interpreter in the

questioning, due to the fact that the officers only speak French and Arabic. First they look into our bags examining every piece of paper (with me it takes them a long time with the multitude of aircraft documents I have in my bag). They ask personal details, such as place and date of birth, army service, in what capacity etc...

It goes without saying that our 3 pilots, the Captain, the Co-pilot and the trainee (both serving as reserve combat pilots) tell them they were trained in a civilian flying school and served as regular

privates in the IDF! I don't know if they believe this story or not, but I do my best during the translation to be as trustworthy as possible. I am especially worried regarding our trainee pilot, Avner Slapak, who is one of the Israeli Air Force ace pilots; he shot down a few Syrian "Mig" fighters a few months before over the Sea of Galilee.

Since I was the only one not born in Israel (excluding Yonah Lichtman who was born in Hungary) and noticing in my passport that I was born in Egypt, they start to inquire why I left Egypt and moved to Israel. I respond that I was "persecuted" there and that I had to leave to "save myself". This story is also "bought" by the interrogators and they continue with other crew members.

5 hours later, after they leave, our first almost decent meal is brought to the barrack, on lunch trays from the Algerian Airlines, "Air Algerie". Food is devoured speedily in spite of its bland taste.

That same evening the investigating team appears again and questions me and the Captain at length regarding what happened during the hijacking.

At the end of the questioning, we demand forcefully that Maoz who has a bad head injury, be taken care of. There's a lot of stalling, but at the end they yield and I accompany him to the base clinic (with 2 guards of course!), where they clean and dress his wound.

On our way back we notice our passengers being held in a big hall, but could not determine if these were all of them or only the Israelis. That night (after writing my diary) I sleep again in my uniform, like the rest of the crew, feeling rather filthy and worrying about the future.

25 July 68 – 3rd day in Jail

Same tasteless coffee in the morning, same French baguette and rotten chocolate bar. We toss it through the window and notice that one of the guards after looking around that he is not being watched pockets the bar quickly. We start to bet on which guard will be the first to spot and pocket the next chocolate bar we toss.

We decide to get organized in the existing conditions and I suggest that I start teaching the guys French. Preparing some charts with words, verbs and sentences, I hint to them that we had better be prepared for a long period in jail and at least learn some of the local language. The guys seem interested and cooperative.

Before noon, comes the base commander, addresses himself to the Captain (who understood French) and apologizes for the whole situation, "You guys fell on us from the skies" (without any doubt!!). He invites everybody outside the barrack, to a big backyard, with a rather neglected swimming pool and we see for the first time the Israeli passengers. They say that after landing, a kind of "selection" was done and all passengers holding foreign passports were released and flown back to Rome on an Alitalia flight.

I ask the sergeant major, by the name of "Lajmi", to try and get us some clothes and underwear, (since we did not took off our uniforms for the last few days). He behaves rather nicely and asks us to prepare a list of all our needs and he will do his best to get them from the local "PX".

In the afternoon, he brings us khaki shorts and shirts, but no underwear as they are missing in the store. I pay for all this in US dollars that I have from the duty free sales on board. Luckily, I have some Yardley soap that I bought at the airport before our departure. We can get washed and we rinse our underwear in a kind of public shower outside our barrack.

The toilets there were of the crouching kind; water bottles had to be used to clean oneself.

We ask for some toilet paper, up to now, we used every piece of paper we had for that purpose!

26 July 68 - day 4 in Jail

We are waken up early and asked to get dressed in our uniforms for a press conference to be held. We are taken to the backyard next to the pool, where we are served cold drinks. A horde of

reporters and television crews, local and foreign, surrounds us, asking numerous questions. The guards summon them to be patient and wait for the press conference.

We are invited to a big hall where a large table is set up with all kinds of food, cooked meat and soft drinks, soups and a huge bowl of the local "couscous". With no hesitation we sit and eat, being rather famished, while being photographed and recorded from all sides.