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The Real Story of the 1985 Hijacking of TWA Flight 847
The summer of 1985 was quite eventful as I remember it. One of the hottest summers on record in southern California. Sean Penn and Madonna were engaged to be married. Coca-Cola Company was forcing the New Coke on us as the original recipe had been stolen. The city of Los Angeles was terrorized by the Night Stalker. Everyone anticipated tuning into the largest ever simulcasted concert event, Live Aid. Yet at the beginning of that summer, another major world event was making headline news. An event that impacted the dynamics of global politics and inspired the increase in terrorism. The high jacking of Trans World Airlines (TWA) flight 847.
The Airline Industry of 1985
To this day, 1985 remains one of the deadliest years in aviation history for aviation disasters, including the crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123 (520 people killed), the bombing of Air India Flight 182 (329), the crash of Arrow Air Flight 1285 (256), crash of Aeroflot Flight 7425 (200), the crash of Iberia Airlines Flight 610 (148), Delta Air Lines Flight 191 (137), Galaxy Airlines Flight 203 (70), and British Airtours Flight 28M (55), a mid-air collision between Aeroflot Flight 8381 and a Soviet Air Forces transport aircraft (94), the hijacking of Egyptair Flight 648 (60), and various crashes and other incidents with under 50 fatalities. August 1985 remains the worst single month for commercial aviation fatalities in history; a total of 2,010 people were killed in commercial aviation accidents in 1985; the second highest in commercial aviation history since 1942; only 1972 had more fatalities (2,373).
During the spring of 1985 pressure had been building as the airlines were dealing with employee strikes. United Airlines pilots were on strike for 29 days, machinists at Alaska Airlines graciously took an entire two months to settle their agreement and Pan Am took 47 days to end the strike of transport workers.
The one airline that was feeling the heat, was the once Howard Hughes led airline, Trans World Airlines (TWA). The rumors circulating among the airline industry that, corporate raider, Carl Icahn, was going to do a hostile takeover of TWA, angered its employees. The only thing that wasn’t falling apart at TWA was the marketing department. I remember that year they…
