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According to the original flight plan, French Pilot Gaston Grellier, 40, headed toward a non-French refueling stop, at Majorca in Spain's Balearic Islands, to avoid putting down in Algeria. In the air the first directive crackled from Algeria: "Refuel at Palma and then proceed to Algiers." Since French delicacy dictated that the Sultan should be among the first to hear that his hospitality was being violated, Pilot Grellier was also told to radio his new destination back to Rabat. Seeing the report, the Moroccan Minister of Works cried, "This is pure piracy," and ordered instructions sent to Pilot Grellier to wait at Majorca until further notice. The plane was on the ground and the passengers drinking in the bar when the order should have arrived. But the French radio operator in Rabat simply neglected to send the message. The DC-3 took off again, bound for Algiers. Minister Lacoste had been let in on the plot and told there was still time to stop it. "No, go ahead," he said, and gave orders for troops and tanks to be sent to the airport.
The Capture. Over the, Mediterranean Pilot Grellier radioed Algiers for a fighter escort, then called in Stewardess Claudine Lambert, 22, told her what was going on and suggested she go back to chat with the passengers to keep them from being suspicious. "Now be a big girl," he said. "Tonight you are entering history."
At 9:15 p.m. she chirped: "Please fasten your seat belts and extinguish your cigarettes. We are arriving in Tunis." A moment later she called out the routine "Please do not move till the plane is completely stopped," then disappeared into the pilot's compartment. Tommy gun-toting gendarmes pried open the plane's back door, poured into the cabin while the passengers were still tied down in their safety belts. Ben Bella said: "All right, we're coming out." One by one the passengers, hands high, got down to the tarmac and were taken away. Shouted Ben Bella: "This is how you can trust the French."
In Tunis an ashen-faced Sultan heard the whispered news after parading with Bourguiba to the cheers of 370,000 Tunisians. In Paris Guy Mollet gasped: "It's crazy. I don't believe it." At a midnight conference Mollet accepted the accomplished fact, and the immediate political advantage it gave him. Next morning all Parisian newspapers except the Communist L'H'umanite cheered the French kidnaping. Mollet, declining to surrender rebels "already condemned by French justice,"* won a massive 330-140 vote of confidence. Only ex-Premier Pierre Mendés-France asked whether "those who organized and ordered the action made any attempt to calculate the consequences in advance. I have never considered these men spokesmen for Algeria, but I am afraid they are going to be now."