Hijacked

On November 23, 1985, Jackie Pflug took her seat aboard EgyptAir Flight 648. When the plane reached flying altitude, several men forcefully took control of the plane. Jackie’s flight was being hijacked. Jackie miraculously survived, but many others did not. Decades later, she tells a story of bravery, profound loss and hope. 

Sydney Morning Herald – 

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/from-the-archives-1985-massacre-on-hijacked-egyptair-flight-648-20191122-p53d4w.html 

Miles to Go Before I Sleep, by Jackie Pflug – 

https://www.amazon.com/Miles-Before-Sleep-Survivors-Terrorist/dp/1568388373 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
As they're having this gun battle thousands of feet up
in the air, many of the bullets start to puncture
the aircraft. I thought we were gonna die. Then.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome to the Knife. I'm Patia Eton, I'm Hannah Smith.
This week we speak with Jackie Flug about a life
altering experience she had in nineteen eighty five when she
survived a plane hijacking.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Jackie was a passenger on egypt Ere six forty eight.
Her story is empowering but also terrifying, and Jackie goes
into great detail about what she saw and experienced that day,
So please be aware of that and take care while listening.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Let's get into the interview.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
I am Jackie Flug and I am survivor of the
egypt Are six four eight hijacking on November the twenty
fourth of nineteen eighty five. I was born and raised
in the Houston area, Houston, Texas, and I went to
college to become a teacher. And there's always this nudge
to go overseas to teach overseas at the American schools.

(01:30):
My first job was in Stevanger, Norway, teaching at the
Stavanger American School, and then I met and married my
first husband, and his name is Scott Flug and we
both got jobs the following year in Cairo, Egypt, and
I was teaching special education at that school, the American

(01:51):
School there. We were together for about a year and
a half before we decided to get married. I was
thirty when we got married, and I believe he was
twenty six.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
This was nineteen eighty five. Cairo was quickly modernizing, and
Jackie and Scott, they were excited to be there. When
they weren't teaching, they had all kinds of adventures. They
visited the ancient Pyramids, they studied Arabic. They sailed the
Nile River more than once. Scott also coached the girls
volleyball team at Cairo American College, and the team was good,

(02:25):
really good. That November, they were invited to Athens, Greece
for a tournament. Of course Scott would be going. Jackie
decided it would be fun to tag along and cheer
on the team.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
So Scott had flown out the day before took his
team to Athens, called me and let me know what
hotel they were staying in the next day I flew
in because I still had to work at the volleyball
games in the gym at this American school and Athens, Greece.
Following the team, I was in the stands cheering them on,

(02:59):
and they kept winning, winning and winning, and they have
another game and they won it, and every time they won,
it seemed like the game might be interfering with the
flight that I was going to take to go home.
So I got on the phone and called and changed
my flight from an afternoon flight to the last flight

(03:21):
out on egypt Are six four eight. And then it
was obvious to me and then that they were going
into the championship game, and I knew I couldn't be there,
and I was really sad about that, but I had
to get on back to work the next day. This
was November the twenty third of nineteen eighty five, and
while they were getting ready for the championship game, I

(03:43):
said goodbye, kiss Scott, say goodbye to the girls, and
off I went and a taxi over to the Athens airport.
When I walked into the Athens airport, I could tell
that security at just about quad drupled from the time
I was there just two or three days before, and

(04:05):
we were standing in these long lines, and I was
in one particular line for security, and I noticed that
they were going through everyone's bags, putting one hand in
their bag, completely putting their whole hand in their bag.
And I remember standing there thinking, Oh, my gosh, I'm
not really doing such a great job. If I had

(04:27):
something in here that wasn't dangerous, I wonder if they
would even find it. That thought came to me. And also,
when I was standing in line, someone just cut right
on in front of me, and I remember thinking, oh
my gosh, this line is long enough not to have
someone to cut in. I didn't say anything to the person,

(04:48):
but I was sort of upset and sort of mad.
And as I got closer, they did the same thing
to my luggage, put their hand in and went through
one side to the others, pushed up clothes in the
air and put them back down, and closed my bag up,
and I carried on and went over to the area
where we were taking off.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Jackie had changed her flight, hoping to see more of
the volleyball tournament. It was the kind of small decision
that we make all the time, a simple change of plans.
Most days, it wouldn't mean a thing, but today it
would mean everything. In fact, it would change the course
of Jackie's life. She was originally booked on a two

(05:31):
PM flight, which had already landed back in Cairo. Now
she was on egypt Air six four eight, the last
flight of the day. It was already dark outside when
she boarded the plane and took her seat for what
she expected to be a short flight just under two hours.
She started to think about what she would do that evening.
When she was back in Cairo. She had plans to

(05:52):
celebrate Thanksgiving with some American friends.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
You know, I was really focused on getting back home
because I was headed to meet some people for Thanksgiving dinner.
And I had just purchased when I was in Athens,
I had purchased Bruce Springsteen's latest release on a tape,
Born in the USA, and I thought, I'm going to

(06:17):
listen to this. So I plugged it in and started
listening to Born in the USA, and everybody was taking
their seats. It's women, men, babies, children, all sorts of
different people from all kinds of nations, it felt like
in different languages. And about fifteen minutes after takeoff, I'm

(06:40):
still listening to my Bruce Springsteen tape and I feel
someone hit me but me and I looked up and
took my headphones off, thinking why somebody in the aisle
were supposed to be seated down, And that's when I
saw the hijacker standing up, two in the front, one

(07:01):
in the back. One of the hijackers in the front
had a gun and a grenade in his hand, and
he said, you're being hijacked by the egypt Revolution and
if you do what you're told, you would not get hurt.
And I believe that. And also on the plane there
was this total confusion and fear and not knowing what

(07:28):
to do from everyone, especially the moms with kids were
certainly afraid and screaming.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
What is the sort of processing your brain is doing
of what you're seeing and hearing, having been only two
seconds ago that you're listening to born in the USA,
just ready to get back to your life teaching.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah, it's quite the contrast. It's not just what you said,
but it's also one moment I'm safe in one moment
I'm not, one moment I'm alive, and one moment I'm
wondering if I'm going to die. One moment, there's this
idea of having Thanksgiving dinner swirling around in my head

(08:14):
for turkey and dressing a meshed potatoes. And then the
next moment there's hijackers with guns yelling at us. God,
I'm only I'm only thirty years old, how can this
be happening? And when I put my hand in my
hands and I'm thinking this and tears are coming down

(08:36):
my face, the hijacker next to me, with the grenade
in his hand, hit me on the head with his
gun to get my attention, on the left side of
my head, and I looked up and he put his
face in my face said are you scared, lady? And
I said, I am good. Man next to me, this

(09:01):
Egyptian man, this businessman that I had befriended early on,
starts to yell at the hijacker in Arabic, and of
course I don't know what they're saying. And then the
hijacker is yelling at the man in Arabic, and I'm
guessing that the conversation is leave her alone. And maybe

(09:24):
the hijacker said you'll be dead if you get in
the middle of this. I don't know really what they
were saying, but I put my hand on the man's
the businessman, Egyptian man's knee to my right and said,
it's okay, it's okay. Because all I could think of was, oh,
my God, please don't have an argument with this hijacker

(09:44):
that's got a grenade and a gun in his hand.
Something started to happen to me that was really interesting,
and that was my inner voice started to kick in
and coming up with ideas. And I started to listen
because I had a feeling that they might have been

(10:04):
coming after the Americans. And what happened is they came
after the Americans and the Israelis.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
A group called the Egypt Revolution would eventually take credit
for this attack, but the three hijackers had links to
both Momargaretafi and Abu Nudal, the notoriously violent leader of
the ANO. The ANO alone was responsible for ninety terrorist
attacks between nineteen seventy four and nineteen ninety two, and

(10:33):
Jackie happened to find herself right in the middle of
one of these terrorist attacks, thirty thousand feet in the air. Immediately,
she said, time slowed down, and her brain or her
inner voice, whatever you want to call it, jumped into
action looking for a plan, a way to help her
survive this. Jackie is from Texas and she studied Spanish

(10:57):
in school, and she thought maybe she could pass herself
off as Mexican. She believed, probably correctly, that this would
make her less of a target than if the hijackers
knew she was from the United States.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Thought, oh, I know, it's a little bit of Spanish.
Maybe I can say something to get me through. But
then they started to take passports, and I knew that
was it. And what they would do is they would
make someone stand up with a gun to them and
they had to relinquish their passport. If they didn't have

(11:33):
it on them, they had to get it in their
bag or their purse. And they relinquished the passports, and
all the men had to take off their ties, and
they had a briefcase, an empty briefcase, and they were
putting the passports and the men's neck ties in the briefcase.
And they did this from the beginning to all the

(11:55):
way toward the back. Little did we know there were
three air marshals on board. And so what I have
learned over the years since his hijacking is that the
airport knew their port knew that there might be some
kind of problems on some of the aircrafts that day.
So they had placed air marshals on board many of

(12:17):
the aircrafts, and there were three, and one of them,
instead of pulling out his passport, pulls out a gun
and he shoots the man. The hijacker that seemed to
be the leader of the pack shoots him and ended
up killing him. But when he shot him, that hijacker

(12:40):
also retaliated and shot back, as well as the other
two hijackers shot at him, and we all sort of
dopped away from the bullets. But as they're having this
gun battle thousands of feet up in the air, one
of the bullets or many of the bullets to puncture
the aircraft and we immediately fall in the sky, and

(13:07):
I thought we were going to die.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Then Jackie writes about this moment in her book Miles
to Go Before I Sleep, saying in a matter of seconds,
we dropped like a rock, losing twenty thousand feet of altitude.
This caused the cabin to depressureise and left us gasping
for air. It was pure pandemonium. Passengers were screaming and

(13:29):
shouting amid total chaos. During the discent, there was a
sudden swoosh as the orange oxygen masks dropped from above.
I pulled mine over my face, but no air came out.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
I take it and I just put it on my
face and I can't breathe. What you're supposed to do
was to take the mess and yank the cord to
start the flow of oxygen. Well I didn't, and I
hadn't been listening to these a lot of attendants that
tell me what to do, and so I was struggling.

(14:04):
The hijacker to my left hits the woman to my
right to say, help her, isn't that interesting? Help her?
And the woman helps me, and I got flow of
oxygen into my mask and I started to breathe. Wow.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, you know, as you were talking about the plane
nose diving in this just horrible chaotic scene that's going down,
my mind was going to what's happening in the cockpit
because you had said the hijackers took over the plane,
but the original pilot and co pilot are still physically
flying the plane. The hijackers are not flying the plane.

(14:45):
But are they making demands or had they made any
demands at this time? And what were those demands as
far as you know.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Here's what their demands were. Of course not. We don't
know this because we are not privy to what's happening
other than you're being hijacked by the egypt Revolution and
if you did what you were told, you'd not get hurt.
That's all that we ever heard from anyone. Their demands
were land somewhere to refuel and go over to Libya.

(15:15):
That was the request of the hijackers, and I when
we did land, if they didn't get what they wanted,
they were going to shoot people one by one, first
with the Israelis and then with the Americans.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
But at the time, you don't know this plan or
what the hijackers are even asking for. You just know
it's super dark out and you're somewhere over the Mediterranean.

Speaker 4 (15:38):
So then what happens, Yes, when the pilot starts to
radio the different airports around the area for us to land,
because we were running out of fuel by this time
and we had to land somewhere to refuel, and he
had radio.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
Different airports close by, and they all said, no, do
not come here, we do not want to hijacked aircraft.
The pilot started to head toward Malta Veletta, Malta, which
is an island in the Mediterranean, and Malta security said,
do not land here. And it's in middle of the night,

(16:17):
it's late at night, and our pilot said, I have
to land this aircraft. There are ninety eight people on
board and we've got three hijackers on board, and I
have to land this aircraft. We're about to fall into
the sea. They continue to say do not land here.
And the pilot gets close to the Malta airport and

(16:40):
he sees the runway and it's all lit up, and
he starts to land our aircraft. While he's in the
process of landing our aircraft, Malta is saying do not
land here, do not land here, and the airport, Malta Airport,

(17:00):
all the runway lights. So we were in the dark.
As he's about to land, we're in the dark. And
there was a plane that was about to take off
that was told not to move because there was a
hijacked aircraft close by. So he was waiting and he
saw what had happened, and that pilot turned his aircraft

(17:24):
so that his flights could shine a little bit onto
the runway and a pilot landed aircraft by the lights
of another aircraft. So thank you to that pilot on
the other aircraft for seeing that.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Of course, none of the passengers, including Jackie, know any
of this at that time. They don't know that they
narrowly escaped a craft landing and that they were saved
by the lights of another plane illuminating the ground. That's
something that really sticks out to me about Jackie's story.
So much is happening on that plane, but for those

(18:12):
being held hostage, they know very little. What Jackie would
find out later is that the pilot intentionally went in
for a rough landing. He was trying to pop the
tires of the plane so that it wouldn't be able
to take off again. Jackie also notes in her book
that the hijackers were very caught off guard by the
rough sudden landing, and.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Unfortunately he wasn't able to blow out the tires. But
when we landed, that's when things started to take place,
and I got moved again. So I got moved from
the front to the back to the middle. And now
I am asked to stand up Jackie Jackie Fluke, I

(18:57):
stand up, and the two hijackers me to the front.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Jackie had been grouped with the other Americans on board.
There were three of them, Jackie, a woman named Scarlett
Marie Rogancamp, and a man named Patrick Scott Baker. The
hijackers brought all three Americans to the front of the plane.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Patrick's first, and I'm behind Patrick and Scartt is behind
me standing up. They tie all three of our hands
behind our backs with the neckties, and they immediately pushed
Patrick onto the aisle seat. Well, I had a choice.
As silly as that may sound, I had a choice.

(19:38):
I had a choice now to take the middle seat
or the window seat. And I decided I was going
to just take the middle seat. And that inner voice
starts to speak again. I heard, take the window seat.
Get over there, take the window seat, And I sort

(19:59):
of argued with it in my head, I'm not going
to take the window seat. If I take the window seat,
I have to go around Patrick's legs and I have
to throw my body into the middle seat, and that's
easier than throwing my body into the window seat. So
I'm having a conversation in my head, and I'm telling
you this lasted for just a second or two. All right,
I'll take the window seat. So that's what I sort

(20:21):
of said in my head. So I went past Patrick's
legs if I passed the middle seat and went over
to the window seat. Scarlett was in the middle seat,
Patrick was on the aisle, and I was on the
window seat.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Did you find out their names later or did you
speak with them when you were on the plane? You know,
were you able to sort of talk?

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah? What was that like? When we finally were all
three together, Patrick says to Scarlet and myself, so, where
are you girls from? Oh my god, I started to giggle, like,
oh my god, what a question to ask at a

(21:02):
time like this. And I sort of giggled. I said, oh,
I'm from Houston. And Scarlett said, what a thing to
be asking a time like this, And I laughed again,
and I thought, well, that is true, what a thing
to be asking at a time like this. But I
started to laugh and I thought, oh my god, that

(21:23):
feels good to laugh. And that was it. That was
the conversation. And Scarlett kept going to me and what
are you doing? And I said, I'm praying, I'm thinking.
And again, I don't know her, just met her, and
she said, will you say a prayer for me. I
said sure, yeah, She said, I want you to pray

(21:46):
the hell Mary. And I grew up as Catholic and
I knew that prayer, and so I said it, hell Mary,
full of grace. The Lord is with thee and on
pray for his centers now the hour of our death. Amen.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Jackie learned later that after the plane landed in Malta,
the hijackers began negotiations with Maltese authorities. They agreed to
let medics approach the plane to ten to the wounded.
The medics removed the hijacker who had been shot and killed,
as well as the air marshal who killed him. The
air marshal was in critical condition but did end up surviving.

(22:25):
And then the hijackers did something surprising. They started to
let people go free. They freed multiple Filipino passengers and
Egyptian passengers, as well as two injured flight attendants. To
Jackie and the other hostages, seeing people safely exit the
plane filled them with hope that this was all going

(22:46):
to be okay.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
So that's when I thought, Okay, all right, this is okay.
You know, they're letting people go. That's awesome. And I
thought because I'm a woman, maybe I would be let go,
and some of these women would be let go. When
some of the women with their children would be let go.
That wasn't the case at all, and they immediately started

(23:09):
to take the Israeli women. They knew who they were,
so they called these two Israeli One of the israel
the women, and she went up blodily, thinking she might
be released, and as she walked through the door, they
shot her in the head. And that's when everything changed

(23:30):
inside the airplane. That's when everything changed, and that perhaps
we aren't going to be out of here, getting out
of this after all. And so there was such a
gasp of It's like somebody let the air out in
the plane and it was full of hope. And now
there was no more hope whatsoever inside that aircraft. And

(23:52):
I could tell the moms that the little kids weren't
even more nervous. And then they asked for the next
Israeli woman. Five minutes went by. They didn't give them
the fuels, so they come after the next is Really women.
Well we know now what they're doing. We don't get
it about the five minutes, but we figured it out,
like after so many minutes, they'll be bringing another passenger.

(24:16):
And so that's what they did, and next next off
was tomorrow. Artzi, well, she knew what was happening with
her friend, Nitsa Mendelssohn, and so she fought and she fought,
and in the fighting she was shot, but it missed
her head. And then when they threw her down the aircraft,

(24:38):
like they do everybody else, they shoot them and throw
their body down the aircraft onto the tarmac, she starts
to move. And when she starts to move, I could
see that and I thought, oh my gosh, she needs
to stop moving. Play dead, That's what I was thinking.
Play dead, Play dead, pretend you're dead.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Because Jackie decided to take the window seat, she had
a clear view of everything that was happening. She decided
that if this happened to her, if she was shot
and somehow survived, that she would lay as still as
possible and pretend to be dead. The hijackers were demanding
fuel for the plane they wanted to fly to Libya.

(25:18):
The Maltese authorities were demanding that they release all the
hostages first. It was a standoff. The hijackers shot both
Tamar Artzi and Nitsen Mendelssohn and said they would continue
to kill a hostage every fifteen minutes until they received
fuel for the plane. They then turned to the Americans.

(25:38):
Patrick was first.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
He stood there in the doorway, and they shot him.
Every time it happened. I closed my eyes, and that
was right up front. I was on the bullhead on
the right side, and I closed my eyes, and I
could hear the thud of hitting the body hitting the
tarmacac I went right into prayer, and then I also
went into thinking about my life. That was kind of

(26:04):
a moment where I knew I was about to die
and started thinking about my life. And I thought about
just hours before that I was so mad at somebody
for cutting in front of me the airport. It didn't
matter anymore. And I thought about my life and what

(26:28):
I had done and with my life for thirty years,
and some of it I was proud of, and some
of it I questioned, and I worried about what other
people thought of me. And I was, you know, wanted
to wear the right clothes and drive the right car
and have the right friends, and sometimes didn't always tell

(26:50):
the truth. So I thought about all these things, and
then I started to one by one put people in
front of me that I and told them what I
loved about them, how much I appreciated them. I learned
from them and said goodbye one by one, my mom,

(27:13):
my dad in spirit, and thought my friends, Scott and
that like goes ready.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Jackie watched as the other American scarlet was also shot
and thrown from the plane, and Jackie knew she was next.
Fifteen minutes passed and nothing happened, and then more time passed,
but nothing happened, and then hours went by and still
nothing happened. At this point the sun had risen. It

(27:48):
was about ten am. Jackie said that the passengers had
begun to feel hopeful yet again. Maybe the hijackers demands
were being met, maybe they would all be set free.
Jackie looked behind her and saw her original seat mate,
and he said to her, you're going to make it.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
You're going to make it. You're going to make it.
And I said, if I don't, please go to the
American School and tell Scott how much I love him.
And then it wasn't but a few minutes after that.
The doors to the cockpit opened, the hijacker comes out.
They opened the door to the aircraft. They picked me

(28:31):
from my seat, from the window seat and brought me
to the front. I got out into the platform and
I saw then it was such a beautiful day. It's
something so awful to be happening. And I felt a
gun to my head. At first, there was a thought.

(28:54):
My mind was thinking, Oh, just turn to the hijacker
and kick him where it hurts and throw my body
down the staircase. That was this idea. This It came
from my mind, and I got a message, no fight,

(29:15):
no fight. And as soon as that time I got
shot in the head. It felt that my eyes went
to the back.

Speaker 5 (29:25):
Of my head and I rolled around. I could feel
my rolling and couldn't feel my body hitting the staircase,
the metal staircase, but I felt I was rolling.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Of some sort. And then it all stopped, and yeah,
then I found myself. I opened my eyes quietly, opened
my eyes and carefully, and I noticed that I was
now on the tarmac and I was right underneath the
metal staircase. And the way I landed is my left

(30:01):
hand was underneath my chest and my right arm was
over my head, and I could just feel how my
left arm was falling asleep, and I knew that I
needed to move it at some point, and when I landed,
I wasn't aware how much time I was there, but

(30:21):
it turned out I was there for five hours, in
and out of consciousness, and the first thought that came
to me was be still. You're gonna be okay, but
you just need to be steel.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Jackie had been shot in the back of the head.
The hijackers made their own bullets, and the one used
to shoot her had a low charge of powder, which
is probably why it didn't kill her. The bullet shattered
the back of her skull and lodged into her brain
in the right side, but she was alive. It was

(30:59):
cold and at one point and began to lightly rain,
which she remembers feeling excruciatingly uncomfortable. Jackie had no ability
to measure time at all, but at some point hours later,
she heard voices.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
And I heard a few men around me, and I thought,
oh my god, these are the hijackers. What do they
want with me now? Are they going to take me
somewhere and put me into something or take me and
shoot me and make sure I'm dead? And so I

(31:35):
thought these were the hijackers and I heard one of
the men's voice say, well, let's do this one right,
That's what he said. And I felt my body to
get lifted up and throw face down onto a metal bed,
and I felt the metal bed lift up and go

(31:57):
into a vehicle. And I heard the vehicle shut and
I heard these three men talking, and I'm thinking, oh
my gosh, where do the hijackers taking me now? And
I'm in a vehicle. This can't be good. And there
is a man to my right, and little did I

(32:17):
know that he didn't like looking at the gunshot well
on my head, so he decided to flip me over.
So he flipped me over. And when he did that,
I guess for air and they start screaming and yelling,
and I feel the vehicle turn course of direction. We're

(32:39):
not going one way anymore, we're going to another. They're
screaming and yelling. And I thought, well, these voices don't
sound like the hijackers. Who could this be? And the
man looked at me and he says, honey, you're alive
and you're gonna be okay. And I said, are you
guys the good guys or the bad guys? And he said, honey,

(33:02):
we're the medics, You're going to be okay. And I
sort of passed out and the next thing I know,
I'm waking up in the hospital.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
The Highjuckers had made a deal with the hostage negotiators
to have food delivered to the plane, and in exchange,
they allowed medics to come and remove the bodies from
the tarmac. The medics had been transporting Jackie to the
morgue when they realized she was alive, and then quickly
changed course and headed to the hospital.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
And so before we get into this chapter of the
surgeries and your recovery, can you tell us about what
was continuing to transpire with Egypt Area flight six four eight.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yes, but while I was in the hospital, there was
a storming of the plane that took place, and the
negotiator who was negotiating that whole event was not trained
in negotiating, and I'm not sure why he was given
that opportunity to do that. But the whole idea was
that they were going to send a commando team, and

(34:11):
it was during this time that the United States and
other countries had come to the area to help out
and the commando team. The negotiation person wanted the Egyptian
commandos to do this because it was an Egyptian airliner,
and so the US team was still there, but they

(34:33):
were not allowed to help out. And the idea that
they had this commando team was that they were going
to open up the back of the aircraft with a
luggage area was and put an explosive of some kind
something that was supposed to be just got someone's attention

(34:54):
in the back. They would look back to see what
that little noise was, and when they did that, the
commando team would come up the stairs and storm the aircraft.
And what happened was that the explosion was too big.
It was it was so big that it blew up

(35:15):
the whole back of the aircraft. Of course it had
to go somewhere, so it sent a fireball down the
aisle and out the aircraft. So some of the commando
teams were burned. They had burns on them because the
fireball went out the door and the windows were blown out.
And also when that happened, people were running everywhere to

(35:39):
get off the plane. And the thorders for the commando
team was to just shoot people, just start shooting people,
and some innocent people got shot.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
And yeah, so this you know, negotiation rescue mission went
terribly wrong, and so then hostages still on the plane
then ended up dying from the fire and from being
shot by the rescue team.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yes, yeah, if he made it out of the aircraft
as it's catching on fire. If you were lucky to
make it out, which not a lot of people were,
then you were running on the tarmac for your life,
and the commando team were shooting people. So you were
lucky to get out of the plane and lucky to
be running around and hopefully not shot. It was a mess.

(36:32):
It was so sad, heartbreaking.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Five hostages were shot by the hijackers and thrown from
the plane. Tamar Artsy, Jackie Flug, and Patrick Baker all survived.
Scarlett Rogan camp and Knits and Mendelssohn did not. The
majority of people who died that day died from the
botch rescue attempt. When the plane was engulfed in flames.

(36:58):
Fifty four passengers died, along with two crew members and
one of the hijackers. The negotiations went so horribly wrong
that day that it has become a case study and
want not to do in a hostage negotiation situation. I
want to just now move into your this recovery begins.

(37:20):
You're transported by ambulance to a hospital. Now doctors are
starting to work on you. There's a bullet in your head.
It's in the back of your head. Tell us about that.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yes, I was in one of the rooms for a
long time, but I'm also in and out of consciousness,
so I don't really know what time means to me yet.
But when I was awake, I could tell something was
wrong with my vision, and I could tell that something
was off. But as I'm waiting around an in and
out of consciousness, I'm just waiting, and then the next

(37:54):
thing I know, I'm in surgery to remove the bullet.
I don't know what was happening during that time, but
later on, as I start to heal and ended up today,
forty years later, I went back to Malta and I
found out that they waited. The doctor waited. I didn't

(38:16):
know that at the time, but the doctor waited. He
felt like I wasn't strong enough, so he waited. I
didn't go into surgery right away. He waited a day
because he thought I wasn't strong enough to make it
out of the surgery. And also there was a hijacker.
Eventually I found this out. The hijacker who shot everyone

(38:36):
also escaped from the plane and was one of those
people that was running around the tarmac, and he was
also hurt by the pilots when we landed and they
started the air raid onto the plane. Hours later, the
pilot took the axe and hit him over the head,

(39:00):
and so he was part of the group that went
into the hospital and they put him in the hospital,
and eventually Patrick Baker, who lived pointed out that he
was a hijacker, so they took him out and put
him under arrest, even though he was under But yeah,
so I'm now leaving Malta airport and the Red Cross

(39:21):
is taking me, which I thought was really cool. And
we're in a Red Cross airport that has all these
cots and beds and I was in one of them.
And we're heading over to Lunchitial, Germany to trilac and
recuperate in the Army hospital there in Launchitial, Germany.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
And so you're flound to Germany. That's where Scott flies
to see you for the first time after this has
all happened. Yes, how long are you in Germany before
you returned to the United States.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
I was there for a couple of weeks, I think,
and then it was to go back to the United
States to go home, and we were told that we
could go to Minneapolis, where Scott was from, or could
go to Houston. And I thought we should go to
Houston because that was my support system there, but Scott
really wanted to go to Minneapolis, and I got talked

(40:17):
into that and that was fine because I love the
snow and I loved his family, and I thought maybe
that would be a good start for me. And as
it turned out, moving to Minnesota to be taken care
of by June flu Scott's mother, was the biggest gift
I could have evergotten.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Jackie came back to the US and was met with
a media circus. Everyone wanted an interview, but Jackie said
she wouldn't be ready for that for years. She needed
to focus on her recovery.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
After you get shot in the head, you may come
out alive, but you don't come out the same ever.
There's always something that's going to be damaged. And I
was very, very scared, very scared, still thinking the hijackers
are going to confind me even though I'm in Minnesota
and Eventually that sort of dissipitated. But I started to

(41:13):
notice that I'd get lost a lot, even in the
bedroom if I had a hard time finding my way
from the bedroom to the bathroom. So we ended up
having to put colored footsteps to go to which bedroom,
and then what color went with what? And I forgot
the color the color went to what room? And I

(41:34):
couldn't tell time anymore. I knew it was eight thirty,
but what do you do at eight thirty? And then
someone said, well, don't forget there's an eight thirty am
and an eight thirty pm. Oh my gosh, So what
do people do at eight thirty in the morning and
what people do at eight thirty at night? And I
couldn't count money anymore. I had to relearn how to

(41:56):
count money. And my short term memory was just about nothing.
And I did have long term memory where I remembered
from the path the events and then my past as well.
And then I started to have epileptic seizures as a
result of being shot.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
The physical trauma to Jackie's brain was immense. She writes
about this in her book, saying a neurologist explained that
a layer of protective gel inside our heads normally provides
a soft cushion or buffer between the brain and the skull.
In my case, the fluid had drained out the bullet

(42:38):
hole in my head. That meant whenever I moved, my
brain pressed directly against my skull, causing shooting pain. It
would take about a year for doctors to find the
right medicine that would help Jackie to stop her seizures.
The road to recovery was long and difficult, and it
wasn't just the physical pain that haunted her.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
The toll of now having to relearn things that you
probably can't even remember. How early in your life you
understood eight thirty am, eight thirty pm, And now here
you are, thirty years old having to relearn these basic
things about just our day to day life. How did
that impact your relationship with Scott and the people close

(43:22):
to you?

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Quite challenging to be truthful about it all. And also
at that time, I had a master's degree, so I
had been through school. And after I got shot in
the head, I got tested. My reading got tested, and
I was testing at a kindergarten reading level, and then
remembering comprehending at a kindergarten reading level, So all of
a sudden, I don't have that reading level anymore. And

(43:45):
also my teaching career was ended because I couldn't keep up.
And then I was started to hear things like you're
not the person I'm married, You're not the person that
with my friend, And I thought, how can I be?
I have gone through this massive experience. Plus I'm not
just dealing with coming back and healing from a hostage situation.

(44:08):
I'm coming back and trying to heal from this trauma
that took parts of my side. No longer have parts
of my side anymore. You know, I have an epilepsy now.
So I was dealing with all that stuff, and then
some people would say, you're not that person anymore that
I knew, and I thought, I know I'm not, and

(44:28):
I was sure that I'd get her back. I was
sure of it, but I never did.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Jackie says the reality is that she would never be
the same person she was before that plane flight, before
the shooting, but she was so determined to keep going.
Jackie said this experience made her think about her life
and her values in a way that she never had before.
She started to really think, what kind of person do
I want to be so I.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Started to just dig deep into and started to get
help along the way from people that helped me find
a way out, through therapists, through doctors, counselor if anyone
suggested something that I should go see someone. It did
not take long. It was by the end of the

(45:18):
day I was on the phone with someone. I uncovered
every single rock to help me get back to some
kind of normalcy, some kind of adjustment. But I kept
having this dream that I would open up this package
from the hijacker and I would open it up and
be an explosion, and the hijacker would say, Haha, I

(45:42):
got you now. And that was a recurring dream, but
definitely a post traumatic stress syndrome. I was didn't want
to go outside. Scott and I moved in with his
mom and dad and Hopkins, Minnesota at the time, and
I didn't want to get out of the house. But
I started to a little by little, and then I

(46:03):
started to meet people and a little bit of meat
started to come out. But I did meet up with
a therapist, and you know, things like this, some of
these situations we as humans find ourselves on sometimes takes
a very long time to heal from. A very long time.

(46:23):
But I just did the work and I didn't give
up and stayed the course and got the help that
I needed along the way. And all of a sudden,
one day I started to laugh, which is foreign to
me at that time. And when they I started to smile,
you know, little by little. But it did not come
because of just me. It came because the angels are

(46:47):
in my path that helped me get where I wanted
to go, the angels and human form that were there
along the way.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah, and you talked about how you originally didn't want
to go back to Minnesota, you wanted to go back
to Texas, but it ends up because Scott wanted to
go to Minnesota, that that's where you go. And it
ends up being this incredible gift because his mother takes
excellent care of you. Eventually, though your relationship with Scott,
you guys divorce. He's you know, having a very difficult

(47:21):
time navigating this new life with this new version of
you and accepting that. And you have taken this healing
journey and been so determined to look at your values
and what's important in a new way. How does that
lead you to the next chapter?

Speaker 2 (47:41):
After I divorced. I was single for about seven years,
and then I met my husband to be the second one.
We ended up having a son, and I eventually wrote
a book about this situation. And when I first had this,
somebody was saying I should write a book. I didn't

(48:02):
even know what to write about, because who wants to
hear just about a story? And as time went on,
I started to learn some of the lessons I was
learning from the hijacking. And once I started to learn
the lessons, then I felt like I was ready to
write a book. So nine years after the hijacking, I
started writing. In ten years after the hijacking, the book

(48:23):
came out. And now that book had all these things
in it, lessons that I learned and people that helped
me get where I wanted to go, and how I
even came out of this idea of hatred and bitterness
to more of forgiving and letting go and getting myself

(48:43):
off the hook in the sense of holding on to
such anger and bitterness.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Yeah, I mean, that's such a mountain to climb after
something like that is not only done to you, but
you're in this position of being forced to witness something
just so increas horrific, and you know one of those
deaths is Scarlet. How does the contact start between you
and Scarlet's mother after the hijacking? And can you tell

(49:11):
me a little bit about those conversations.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah, she found out my phone number, she called me
and I she wanted to know what Scarlett's last words
were and what she was like, and since I was
the last one to see her, and I told her
that we said prayers together and I said to hell
Mary for her, and she goes, yeah, she really likes

(49:35):
that hell Mary. And we shared this conversation for I
don't know, maybe about thirty minutes, and I think that
she got what she needed and what she wanted and
that was it.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Jackie's first book, Miles to Go Before I Sleep, chronicles
the hijacking and her recovery. She is releasing another book
in twenty twenty five called Wake Up. It's Time to
say Yes to creating a life worth lof. In her
new book, Jackie talks about saying yes to life. She
writes that after the hijacking and the years of recovering

(50:08):
from her brain injury, life was still there waiting for her,
the good stuff and the hard stuff. She learned how
to say yes to life, to get back in the
saddle and back on airplanes. She knew if she didn't,
her life would be smaller and she would have fewer
opportunities to see the world. And one of the stories
she tells in this new book is her return to Malta.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
I was going back to Malta's to find as many
people as I possibly could to say thank you for
saving my life. And I did, and that is a
beautiful story. I started to write about these stories that
I've experienced in my life, and not about the hijacking,
because I already wrote a book about that, and that
book is over two hundred pages about the hijacking. So

(50:53):
it was more of stories I've experienced over time. And
also that book or My Story, launched a twenty five
year career in motivational speaking, and I spoken all over
the world telling the story and the lessons that I
learned from it. And when I started to write another

(51:14):
book years and years later, which is seven years ago
from me anyway, I felt like there was so much
of my story that hadn't been told. And I retired
after my twenty five years of speaking on the circuit,
and I retired and during retirement, I started to shut
down and I didn't even know it. I continued to

(51:38):
be a mom and a wife and a friend, but
I was on autopilot, cruise control, sort of sleep at
the wheel. And I called my business coach, Mark LeBlanc,
and I said, I think there's another book in me.
And little did I know that I would be on
an entirely different adventure, a new journey. I thought the

(51:58):
journey after the hijacking was a big deal, but this
journey was just as big. But the book is called
wake Up. It's time to say yes to creating a
life worth loving. Wake up to who you are, Wake
up to what is possible. Wake up to a life
worth loving. Like I said, I didn't even know it
was on this journey, But what I was really doing

(52:18):
was creating a new starting line to what is possible.
Most of us live our lives in quiet resignation and
may not know it. So the essence of the book
wake Up is to jop people out of where we
are and what we've given up, where they've given up.
I gave up. I gave up, but didn't even know it.

(52:40):
I kept thinking I want more out of relationships. I
want more out of my marriage. So now I'm in
my second marriage, I want more out of life. So
this book is for more joy, more peace, more passion,
more adventure, more happiness, more balanced. I'm excited about this book,
if you can probably telling.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
What an interview with Jackie that was intense. When we
first connected with Jackie about doing this interview, one of
her concerns was that it had been so long since
she had told the story, and in speaking with her,
it was so evident how well she was able to
recall everything, which I think it's just makes it so

(53:24):
clear that something like this really never leaves you.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah, she really was able to talk about it and
vivid detail, which is really impressive. Honestly, after going through
something so traumatic, and I imagine her writing the book
and then being an inspirational speaker for so many years,
she has had a lot of practice speaking and telling
her story, and it's such an inspiring story. I'm just

(53:51):
so impressed by her. She's so kind and thoughtful, introspective
and just even like hearing everything that she has survived
is pretty wild.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
Oh my gosh. And that moment when she talked about
how she had had that initial frustration with the men
who had cut in front of her in line, and
then you're realizing you're on this hijacked plane and you're
thinking why did I let that bother me? It's like, wow,
that is how a near death experience like that changes
your perspective. And we do so many interviews with people

(54:24):
who have experienced trauma, and I think that it's really
important to maintain our composure even when a story is
getting really emotional, because it's not our story, it's it's theirs.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
And sometimes it's hard though, it's really hard.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
And in this one, I had a moment where I
was like, oh my gosh, I can feel that lump
forming in my throat. And it was actually the moment
that Jackie talked about the other pilot at the Malta
airport realizing what was happening, that the airport was going
to abandon this hijacked plane by turning off all the
lights and saying like, don't land here, We're not going
to help you land here, and he turns on his lights.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
I assume that the airport did that in an effort
to try to get them to like fly away and
not land. Yeah, But the way Jackie told it is like, no,
that's not an option. They're almost out of fuel, so
it's like they have to land, and the idea of landing,
like in the dark where you can't see the ground
is so scary.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
That pilot that turned on his lights, he gave them
the opportunity to save lives on that plane.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yeah, it's very touching. You know.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
I was telling my mom about the interview after we
did it, and I actually started crying a little bit
when I told her that part, just because I'm like, whoa,
you know, he had that moment of Okay, if I
were in this pilot's shoes, I would want this for me.
And you know, also to think of how the Malta
airport handled that as devastating and that was a glimmer

(55:48):
of hope within a really tragic story.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
So, you know, Jackie has written and published two books,
which we mentioned in the episode, and we always like
to read books that our interviewees have written. You actually,
you read the first book and I read the second book.
A lot of the first book was sort of covered
in the episode, but I'm sure there's so much more
in there that's not I'm just curious if there's anything
else that stands out to you.

Speaker 3 (56:13):
Yeah, the first book the Jackie wrote that I read
is called Miles to Go Before I Sleep, and it's
an incredible retelling of not only the hijacking but her
life before and after. And she really dives into what
happened on the plane in every detail that she has

(56:34):
learned since and that she can remember, and you know,
particularly her interactions with other passengers and how there's this
sort of instantaneous bond that happened between them. You know,
you're watching someone walk to what will be either the
end of their life or a chance to get to safety,
and especially the moments that she shares about sitting next

(56:55):
to Scarlet in that seat in the last moments of
her life. I thought the book was incredible and I'd
recommend it to anyone.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Awesome, And Jackie just came out with a new book,
Wake Up. It's time to say yes to creating a
life worth loving. And this book sounds like it's very
different from her first book. In the beginning of the book,
she opens it and acknowledges that she survived this plane
hijacking was this really intense, big thing that she went

(57:26):
through at a relatively young age. At thirty years old.
And I just want to read this one segment because
it kind of explains what's to come in the book.
She's talking about like that period of time as she's
recovering from the plane hijacking. She says, someone told me
what happened to me was so huge and horrible. How
could anything else compare? Perhaps because it was so big,

(57:48):
I had gotten the big bad thing out of the
way at an early age, and nothing from then on
could compare. But she talks about life going on and
that that's actually just didn't end up being true for her.
She went through divorce at forty eight, she was diagnosed
with stage three colon cancer when she had a six
year old child. You know, she's dealt with like some

(58:10):
really difficult bone breaking type of injuries and just sort
of like the things in life that are hard. And
I really like the perspective she has in this book
because she tells a lot of stories from her life.
She talks about like stories from childhood, she talks about
stories from her adulthood. She goes on a European adventure

(58:33):
with one of her friends and they like drive on
the Audubon, which just sounds terrifying to me. She talks
about like going on a whitewater rafting trip and being
really underprepared and scared, and it sort of hit me
when I was reading it, like going on an adventure
driving on the Audubon, Like going on a whitewater rafting

(58:55):
trip as an adult can be like a scary, adventurous thing,
no matter what you've been through. But I really appreciate
the way that she's approached her life, Like you could
see it going a different way where she had this
terrifying experience that many people would never really know what
that's like, and then she could sort of shell up
and have a small life. And like, no judgment to

(59:15):
someone who reacts that way, but she has really gone
the opposite where she is seeking out and continues to
seek out ways to put herself in like situations where
she's potentially taking risks or doing something uncomfortable, because that
is what is important to her about living life. So
that's kind of what her book is about.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
Yeah, that's amazing, I'd love to read it. I also
think it's such an interesting way to like lead into
it about this big, bad thing has already happened and
so now it's like I can handle whatever's next. But
part of I think the human condition and resilience is
that the more something is in your past, it's like
you're more focused on what's in front of you. It

(59:56):
doesn't mean that that ever becomes a small moment in
time to her, but you know, how long can you
live in that moment? And she's really stepped out of
it and it was just a pleasure speaking with her.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
Yeah, I agree. So that's our episode for today. We'll
be back next week.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Thanks for listening.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
If you have a story for us, we would love
to hear it. Our email is The Knife at Exactlyrightmedia
dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram at
the Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
by me Hannah Smith and.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Me Paytia Eating. Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Artwork five Asa Lilac.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer,