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The hijacking of Flight 847 had begun Friday morning when the plane, a Boeing 727 that had taken off from Cairo two hours earlier, landed at Athens and took on additional passengers. Among them were 24 members of three Roman Catholic churches from towns in northeastern Illinois, who had spent a fortnight visiting the Holy Land. Also among them were two well-dressed young Arabs carrying shoulder bags who had arrived from Cairo the day before. Along with a third man, they spent the night in the airport lounge, waiting to board the TWA plane. As it turned out, only two of the men managed to get seats on the crowded flight; the third, after arguing with TWA officials, was forced to stay behind. He was later arrested at the airport by Greek police and identified as Ali Atwa, 21, an airconditioning technician from southern Lebanon. He identified his confederates as Ahmed Gharbiyeh and Ali Youness, both 20 and also Lebanese.
According to police, Atwa said he and the others were members of Islamic Jihad, a claim later affirmed by an anonymous caller in Beirut and then disputed in a statement delivered to news agencies there. The confusion may stem from Iran's recent efforts to play down its connections with terrorists in hopes of winning international support for its 4 1/2-year struggle against Iraq. Atwa told police that his friends had managed to smuggle two grenades and a 9-mm pistol through the airport's X-ray machines by wrapping the weapons in fiber glass insulation.
Scarcely 20 minutes after the plane had taken off for Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport, on a flight that was supposed to continue via a Boeing 747 to Boston, Los Angeles and San Diego, it was taken over by the two terrorists, who wildly brandished their grenades and pistol. They gave the pilot, Captain John Testrake of Richmond, Mo., the first order: fly to Beirut. At Beirut International Airport, the last thing officials wanted was a skyjacking crisis on their hands, and so they blocked the airport runway with buses and other obstacles. But the terrorists and their captive pilot were having none of it. Demanded the pilot: "They are beating up passengers. We must land in Beirut. He has pulled the pin of the grenade. We must land. He is ready to blow up the plane."
On the ground in Beirut, the plane was refueled as the hijackers had ordered. The terrorists also asked to speak to an official of Amal, the mainstream Shi'ite Muslim political and military force, but Amal leaders refused the request. After announcing their demands, the hijackers released 19 women and children via a yellow escape chute lowered from the forward door. One freed hostage, Irma Garza of Laredo, Texas, said that the terrorists had shot one man in the neck. Passengers were unnerved by the behavior of the hijackers. "They were hysterical, they were screaming," said Patricia Weber of Albuquerque.