Terrorism Bloody Band

A plane hijacked in Siberia

By all accounts, the Ovechkins of Siberia were a remarkable family. After giving birth to the tenth of her eleven children, Ninel Ovechkin was awarded the Soviet title of "Hero Mother." After her husband died in 1984, she reared her seven sons and four daughters by herself in the city of Irkutsk, about 2,600 miles east of Moscow. The boys started a popular local jazz band called the Seven Simeons and recently performed in Japan.

That made it all the more puzzling last week when the family attempted to hijack a Soviet airliner, an incident that climaxed in a moment of...

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