Terror in black September : the first eyewitness account of the infamous 1970 hijackings

On Sunday, September 6, 1970, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked four airliners bound from Europe for New York. One, a brand new Pan Am 747, was taken to Cairo and blown up only seconds after its passengers escaped. The attempt to hijack a second plane, an El Al flight, was foiled and the plane landed safely in the UK. Two other planes, one TWA and one Swissair, were directed to the desert floor thirty-five miles northeast of Amman, Jordan, where a twenty-five day hostage drama began. With the additional hijacking of a British airliner, over four hundred and fifty hostages had landed in the Jordanian desert. David Raab was on the TWA flight with his mother and siblings but was separated from them and taken to a refugee camp and then to an apartment in Amman where he was held hostage through a civil war. This is his story.

A gripping eye-witness account of the hijacking of four planes by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1970 written by one of the passengers

Publishers Weekly

Thirty-seven years ago on September 6, Palestinian revolutionaries hijacked four airliners bound for New York. Two of the planes were flown to the desert outside of Amman, Jordan, and held there just as the Jordanian civil war erupted. Raab, a health-care executive, was a 17-year-old hostage on one of those planes, and he recounts the ordeal, which resulted in his being separated from his family and dragged back and forth across Jordan for weeks in fear for his life. Raab also attempts to narrate the larger story, from the tense, fractious multinational negotiations over the hostages to the conflict between the Jordanian army and the Palestinian guerrillas. It is an ambitious undertaking, one that Raab lacks the craft to achieve. While the book is painstakingly researched, the writing rarely comes alive, even in the most dramatic situations. The various sources-including Raab's account that he wrote soon after his release-seem to be stuck together rather than shaped. Still, much of the material is intrinsically fascinating and a sad reminder of how much and how little has changed. Four hijacking attempts in one day was a record that would stand alone for 31 years, until another September day in 2001. (Sept.)

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"On September 6,1970, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked four airliners bound from Europe for New York. One was taken to Cairo and blown up only seconds after its passengers escaped. Two others landed on the desert floor northeast of Amman, Jordan, and a three-week hostage drama ensued. After nearly a week on one of the planes, seventeen-year-old David Raab was separated from his mother and siblings and taken to a refugee camp and then Amman, where he was held captive with thirty-one other Americans during the Jordanian civil war." "This is the story of Raab's capture and survival. Combining entries from his diary as a seventeen-year-old hostage and an in-depth exploration of the political conditions affecting his capture, Raab sheds new light on Black September. He reveals never before published archival material surrounding the hijackings, proving that the Soviets were behind Syria's invasion of Jordan - as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger suspected but historians doubted - and he shows that during the hostage crisis, King Hussein requested Israel's help in saving his throne." "Raab weaves a historical narrative to illustrate how the single most politically significant terrorist event prior to September 11 changed the face of the Middle East."--Jacket On September 6, 1970, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLEP) hijacked four airliners bound from Europe for New York. One was taken to Cairo and blown up only seconds after its passengers escaped. Two others were hijacked to the desert floor northeast of Amman, Jordan, where a three-week drama began. Seventeen-year-old David Raab was on the TWA flight with his mother and siblings but was separated from them and taken to a refugee camp and then an apartment in Amman where he was held hostage through a civil war. This is the breathtaking story of his capture and survival, told h