TWA Flight 847 from Cairo to San Diego with stops in Athens and Rome, was hijacked by Mohammed Ali Hamadei, along with an armed accomplice. Over the next 17 days crisscrossing the Mediterranean from Beirut to Algiers, the 153 passengers and crew members were subject to beatings and death threats. On June 15, U.S. Navy diver, Robert Stethem, was severely beaten before being shot in the head and thrown onto the tarmac of the Beirut airport. The goal was to demand the release of Lebanese who were being held in Israeli prisons. Today, the hijackers remain at large.—(FBI)
Date of event: June 14, 1985
Impact:
- 1 fatality
Related Resources:
- Serial No. 109-233: Hezbollah’s Global Reach: Joint Hearing Before the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation and the Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Ninth Congress, Second Session, September 28, 2006
- Justice Forsaken: How the Federal Government Fails the American Victims of Iranian and Palestinian Terrorism, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, One Hundred Fourteenth Congress, First Session, November 4, 2015
- Air Piracy and Terrorism Directed Against U.S. Air Carriers
HSDL Featured Topic: Global Terrorism
HSDL Search: TWA Flight 847
Photo: (Credit: U.S. Navy) Memorial for Robert D. Stethem in Yokosuka, Japan.