East Africa's first hijack victims -- 33 passengers and crew aboard a Kenyan internal flight -- flew back to Nairobi yesterday (20 March) after Uganda's President Idi Amin had persuaded the hijackers to surrender.
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GV Nairobi Airport.
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GV Hijacked aircraft taxiing in.
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GV Passengers get off aircraft and greeted by Colonel Toko.
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SCU Reporter interviewing passenger.
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QUESTION: "Were you frightened at all, or were any of the passengers frightened?"
PASSENGER: "I wasn't at the beginning. I was getting a bit frightened towards the end, because at that moment we didn't know what we were doing -- and obviously they didn't know what they wanted themselves. We were going to find, obviously, a shortage of time and we didn't have enough fuel -- we knew that. We couldn't go anywhere where they said we were going to, and by the time we landed in Entebbe, I don't think we were that much frightened. Although the sight of Ugandan Army isn't a very pleasant sight either."
QUESTION: "Tell me, was anyone manhandled at all?"
PASSENGER: "No, not at all, not at all. In fact the whole thing went in a rather cordial atmosphere, I must say. The hijacker had manners. He was concerned about our condition and our state. He said: 'Don't worry, everything will be okay.'"
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Background: East Africa's first hijack victims -- 33 passengers and crew aboard a Kenyan internal flight -- flew back to Nairobi yesterday (20 March) after Uganda's President Idi Amin had persuaded the hijackers to surrender.
The aircraft was seized by an Ethiopian couple, apparently protesting against the rule of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie. The woman had apparently hidden a gun in her tall Afro-style hairdo.
Passengers said the hijackers at first wanted the pilot to fly to Libya, then to Moscow. But the Fokker Friendship aircraft first had to land at Uganda's Entebbe airport to refuel. There, armed troops ringed the tarmac and President Amin rushed to the control tower to negotiate with the hijackers. As a result, the hijackers surrendered their pistol.
For Visnews, reporter Paul Toulmin-Rothe interviewed one of the passengers to get further details of an unusual hijacking:
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