Surviving Terrorist Hijacking

Charlot Zahra spoke to Malta hijack survivor Jackie Pflug who recently visited Malta to promote her book, 'Miles to Go Before I Sleep: A Survivor’s Story of Life After a Terrorist Hijacking', which tells the story of how she survived the EgyptAir terrorist ordeal in 1985. From TMIS:

Almost 21 years ago, she was lying in a hospital bed in St Luke’s Hospital fighting for her life after she was shot by a hijacker at Luqa Airport. On Saturday, 23 November 1985, Ms Pflug was flying to Cairo from Athens where she had attended a volleyball tournament with a group of students. At the time, she was a special education teacher at the Cairo American School. Ten minutes into EgyptAir Flight No MS 648, three men calling themselves “The Egypt Revolution,” hijacked the flight.

A gun battle ensued when the terrorists took control of the plane at an altitude of 35,000 feet. The plane, with 91 passengers and six crew members on board, was forced to land at Luqa Airport. The hijackers began to execute one passenger every 15 minutes until their demands for fuel were met. Like four passengers before her, Ms Pflug was shot at point blank range, thrown from the plane onto the tarmac and left for dead. For five hours, she drifted in and out of consciousness until an airport ground crew picked up her body to take to the morgue and discovered she was still alive. Fifty-nine passengers died in that terrible disaster...