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Hijacked · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
0:06
Speaker 2: As they're having this gun battle thousands of feet up
0:09
Speaker 2: in the air, many of the bullets start to puncture
0:12
Speaker 2: the aircraft. I thought we were gonna die. Then.
0:31
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Knife. I'm Patia Eton, I'm Hannah Smith.
0:34
Speaker 1: This week we speak with Jackie Flug about a life
0:37
Speaker 1: altering experience she had in nineteen eighty five when she
0:40
Speaker 1: survived a plane hijacking.
0:42
Speaker 3: Jackie was a passenger on egypt Ere six forty eight.
0:45
Speaker 3: Her story is empowering but also terrifying, and Jackie goes
0:49
Speaker 3: into great detail about what she saw and experienced that day,
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Speaker 3: So please be aware of that and take care while listening.
0:57
Speaker 1: Let's get into the interview.
1:04
Speaker 2: I am Jackie Flug and I am survivor of the
1:08
Speaker 2: egypt Are six four eight hijacking on November the twenty
1:11
Speaker 2: fourth of nineteen eighty five. I was born and raised
1:15
Speaker 2: in the Houston area, Houston, Texas, and I went to
1:19
Speaker 2: college to become a teacher. And there's always this nudge
1:24
Speaker 2: to go overseas to teach overseas at the American schools.
1:30
Speaker 2: My first job was in Stevanger, Norway, teaching at the
1:33
Speaker 2: Stavanger American School, and then I met and married my
1:37
Speaker 2: first husband, and his name is Scott Flug and we
1:42
Speaker 2: both got jobs the following year in Cairo, Egypt, and
1:47
Speaker 2: I was teaching special education at that school, the American
1:51
Speaker 2: School there. We were together for about a year and
1:54
Speaker 2: a half before we decided to get married. I was
1:57
Speaker 2: thirty when we got married, and I believe he was
2:00
Speaker 2: twenty six.
2:02
Speaker 1: This was nineteen eighty five. Cairo was quickly modernizing, and
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Speaker 1: Jackie and Scott, they were excited to be there. When
2:09
Speaker 1: they weren't teaching, they had all kinds of adventures. They
2:12
Speaker 1: visited the ancient Pyramids, they studied Arabic. They sailed the
2:16
Speaker 1: Nile River more than once. Scott also coached the girls
2:20
Speaker 1: volleyball team at Cairo American College, and the team was good,
2:25
Speaker 1: really good. That November, they were invited to Athens, Greece
2:28
Speaker 1: for a tournament. Of course Scott would be going. Jackie
2:32
Speaker 1: decided it would be fun to tag along and cheer
2:34
Speaker 1: on the team.
2:36
Speaker 2: So Scott had flown out the day before took his
2:40
Speaker 2: team to Athens, called me and let me know what
2:43
Speaker 2: hotel they were staying in the next day I flew
2:46
Speaker 2: in because I still had to work at the volleyball
2:49
Speaker 2: games in the gym at this American school and Athens, Greece.
2:55
Speaker 2: Following the team, I was in the stands cheering them on,
2:59
Speaker 2: and they kept winning, winning and winning, and they have
3:03
Speaker 2: another game and they won it, and every time they won,
3:07
Speaker 2: it seemed like the game might be interfering with the
3:11
Speaker 2: flight that I was going to take to go home.
3:14
Speaker 2: So I got on the phone and called and changed
3:17
Speaker 2: my flight from an afternoon flight to the last flight
3:21
Speaker 2: out on egypt Are six four eight. And then it
3:24
Speaker 2: was obvious to me and then that they were going
3:27
Speaker 2: into the championship game, and I knew I couldn't be there,
3:30
Speaker 2: and I was really sad about that, but I had
3:33
Speaker 2: to get on back to work the next day. This
3:36
Speaker 2: was November the twenty third of nineteen eighty five, and
3:40
Speaker 2: while they were getting ready for the championship game, I
3:43
Speaker 2: said goodbye, kiss Scott, say goodbye to the girls, and
3:48
Speaker 2: off I went and a taxi over to the Athens airport.
3:53
Speaker 2: When I walked into the Athens airport, I could tell
3:57
Speaker 2: that security at just about quad drupled from the time
4:02
Speaker 2: I was there just two or three days before, and
4:05
Speaker 2: we were standing in these long lines, and I was
4:08
Speaker 2: in one particular line for security, and I noticed that
4:13
Speaker 2: they were going through everyone's bags, putting one hand in
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Speaker 2: their bag, completely putting their whole hand in their bag.
4:20
Speaker 2: And I remember standing there thinking, Oh, my gosh, I'm
4:24
Speaker 2: not really doing such a great job. If I had
4:27
Speaker 2: something in here that wasn't dangerous, I wonder if they
4:30
Speaker 2: would even find it. That thought came to me. And also,
4:34
Speaker 2: when I was standing in line, someone just cut right
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Speaker 2: on in front of me, and I remember thinking, oh
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Speaker 2: my gosh, this line is long enough not to have
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Speaker 2: someone to cut in. I didn't say anything to the person,
4:48
Speaker 2: but I was sort of upset and sort of mad.
4:51
Speaker 2: And as I got closer, they did the same thing
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Speaker 2: to my luggage, put their hand in and went through
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Speaker 2: one side to the others, pushed up clothes in the
5:00
Speaker 2: air and put them back down, and closed my bag up,
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Speaker 2: and I carried on and went over to the area
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Speaker 2: where we were taking off.
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Speaker 1: Jackie had changed her flight, hoping to see more of
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Speaker 1: the volleyball tournament. It was the kind of small decision
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Speaker 1: that we make all the time, a simple change of plans.
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Speaker 1: Most days, it wouldn't mean a thing, but today it
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Speaker 1: would mean everything. In fact, it would change the course
5:28
Speaker 1: of Jackie's life. She was originally booked on a two
5:31
Speaker 1: PM flight, which had already landed back in Cairo. Now
5:35
Speaker 1: she was on egypt Air six four eight, the last
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Speaker 1: flight of the day. It was already dark outside when
5:41
Speaker 1: she boarded the plane and took her seat for what
5:43
Speaker 1: she expected to be a short flight just under two hours.
5:47
Speaker 1: She started to think about what she would do that evening.
5:50
Speaker 1: When she was back in Cairo. She had plans to
5:52
Speaker 1: celebrate Thanksgiving with some American friends.
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Speaker 2: You know, I was really focused on getting back home
5:59
Speaker 2: because I was headed to meet some people for Thanksgiving dinner.
6:06
Speaker 2: And I had just purchased when I was in Athens,
6:09
Speaker 2: I had purchased Bruce Springsteen's latest release on a tape,
6:15
Speaker 2: Born in the USA, and I thought, I'm going to
6:17
Speaker 2: listen to this. So I plugged it in and started
6:20
Speaker 2: listening to Born in the USA, and everybody was taking
6:24
Speaker 2: their seats. It's women, men, babies, children, all sorts of
6:31
Speaker 2: different people from all kinds of nations, it felt like
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Speaker 2: in different languages. And about fifteen minutes after takeoff, I'm
6:40
Speaker 2: still listening to my Bruce Springsteen tape and I feel
6:46
Speaker 2: someone hit me but me and I looked up and
6:50
Speaker 2: took my headphones off, thinking why somebody in the aisle
6:54
Speaker 2: were supposed to be seated down, And that's when I
6:57
Speaker 2: saw the hijacker standing up, two in the front, one
7:01
Speaker 2: in the back. One of the hijackers in the front
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Speaker 2: had a gun and a grenade in his hand, and
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Speaker 2: he said, you're being hijacked by the egypt Revolution and
7:12
Speaker 2: if you do what you're told, you would not get hurt.
7:14
Speaker 2: And I believe that. And also on the plane there
7:18
Speaker 2: was this total confusion and fear and not knowing what
7:28
Speaker 2: to do from everyone, especially the moms with kids were
7:33
Speaker 2: certainly afraid and screaming.
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Speaker 3: What is the sort of processing your brain is doing
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Speaker 3: of what you're seeing and hearing, having been only two
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Speaker 3: seconds ago that you're listening to born in the USA,
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Speaker 3: just ready to get back to your life teaching.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's quite the contrast. It's not just what you said,
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Speaker 2: but it's also one moment I'm safe in one moment
8:00
Speaker 2: I'm not, one moment I'm alive, and one moment I'm
8:04
Speaker 2: wondering if I'm going to die. One moment, there's this
8:09
Speaker 2: idea of having Thanksgiving dinner swirling around in my head
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Speaker 2: for turkey and dressing a meshed potatoes. And then the
8:18
Speaker 2: next moment there's hijackers with guns yelling at us. God,
8:23
Speaker 2: I'm only I'm only thirty years old, how can this
8:28
Speaker 2: be happening? And when I put my hand in my
8:33
Speaker 2: hands and I'm thinking this and tears are coming down
8:36
Speaker 2: my face, the hijacker next to me, with the grenade
8:40
Speaker 2: in his hand, hit me on the head with his
8:44
Speaker 2: gun to get my attention, on the left side of
8:48
Speaker 2: my head, and I looked up and he put his
8:51
Speaker 2: face in my face said are you scared, lady? And
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Speaker 2: I said, I am good. Man next to me, this
9:01
Speaker 2: Egyptian man, this businessman that I had befriended early on,
9:07
Speaker 2: starts to yell at the hijacker in Arabic, and of
9:12
Speaker 2: course I don't know what they're saying. And then the
9:14
Speaker 2: hijacker is yelling at the man in Arabic, and I'm
9:19
Speaker 2: guessing that the conversation is leave her alone. And maybe
9:24
Speaker 2: the hijacker said you'll be dead if you get in
9:26
Speaker 2: the middle of this. I don't know really what they
9:29
Speaker 2: were saying, but I put my hand on the man's
9:32
Speaker 2: the businessman, Egyptian man's knee to my right and said,
9:37
Speaker 2: it's okay, it's okay. Because all I could think of was, oh,
9:40
Speaker 2: my God, please don't have an argument with this hijacker
9:44
Speaker 2: that's got a grenade and a gun in his hand.
9:49
Speaker 2: Something started to happen to me that was really interesting,
9:53
Speaker 2: and that was my inner voice started to kick in
9:58
Speaker 2: and coming up with ideas. And I started to listen
10:02
Speaker 2: because I had a feeling that they might have been
10:04
Speaker 2: coming after the Americans. And what happened is they came
10:08
Speaker 2: after the Americans and the Israelis.
10:11
Speaker 1: A group called the Egypt Revolution would eventually take credit
10:15
Speaker 1: for this attack, but the three hijackers had links to
10:18
Speaker 1: both Momargaretafi and Abu Nudal, the notoriously violent leader of
10:23
Speaker 1: the ANO. The ANO alone was responsible for ninety terrorist
10:28
Speaker 1: attacks between nineteen seventy four and nineteen ninety two, and
10:33
Speaker 1: Jackie happened to find herself right in the middle of
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Speaker 1: one of these terrorist attacks, thirty thousand feet in the air. Immediately,
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Speaker 1: she said, time slowed down, and her brain or her
10:45
Speaker 1: inner voice, whatever you want to call it, jumped into
10:49
Speaker 1: action looking for a plan, a way to help her
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Speaker 1: survive this. Jackie is from Texas and she studied Spanish
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Speaker 1: in school, and she thought maybe she could pass herself
11:00
Speaker 1: off as Mexican. She believed, probably correctly, that this would
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Speaker 1: make her less of a target than if the hijackers
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Speaker 1: knew she was from the United States.
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Speaker 2: Thought, oh, I know, it's a little bit of Spanish.
11:14
Speaker 2: Maybe I can say something to get me through. But
11:17
Speaker 2: then they started to take passports, and I knew that
11:20
Speaker 2: was it. And what they would do is they would
11:25
Speaker 2: make someone stand up with a gun to them and
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Speaker 2: they had to relinquish their passport. If they didn't have
11:33
Speaker 2: it on them, they had to get it in their
11:35
Speaker 2: bag or their purse. And they relinquished the passports, and
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Speaker 2: all the men had to take off their ties, and
11:44
Speaker 2: they had a briefcase, an empty briefcase, and they were
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Speaker 2: putting the passports and the men's neck ties in the briefcase.
11:52
Speaker 2: And they did this from the beginning to all the
11:55
Speaker 2: way toward the back. Little did we know there were
11:58
Speaker 2: three air marshals on board. And so what I have
12:01
Speaker 2: learned over the years since his hijacking is that the
12:07
Speaker 2: airport knew their port knew that there might be some
12:10
Speaker 2: kind of problems on some of the aircrafts that day.
12:14
Speaker 2: So they had placed air marshals on board many of
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Speaker 2: the aircrafts, and there were three, and one of them,
12:21
Speaker 2: instead of pulling out his passport, pulls out a gun
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Speaker 2: and he shoots the man. The hijacker that seemed to
12:30
Speaker 2: be the leader of the pack shoots him and ended
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Speaker 2: up killing him. But when he shot him, that hijacker
12:40
Speaker 2: also retaliated and shot back, as well as the other
12:45
Speaker 2: two hijackers shot at him, and we all sort of
12:50
Speaker 2: dopped away from the bullets. But as they're having this
12:54
Speaker 2: gun battle thousands of feet up in the air, one
12:58
Speaker 2: of the bullets or many of the bullets to puncture
13:00
Speaker 2: the aircraft and we immediately fall in the sky, and
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Speaker 2: I thought we were going to die.
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Speaker 1: Then Jackie writes about this moment in her book Miles
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Speaker 1: to Go Before I Sleep, saying in a matter of seconds,
13:16
Speaker 1: we dropped like a rock, losing twenty thousand feet of altitude.
13:21
Speaker 1: This caused the cabin to depressureise and left us gasping
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Speaker 1: for air. It was pure pandemonium. Passengers were screaming and
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Speaker 1: shouting amid total chaos. During the discent, there was a
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Speaker 1: sudden swoosh as the orange oxygen masks dropped from above.
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Speaker 1: I pulled mine over my face, but no air came out.
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Speaker 2: I take it and I just put it on my
13:45
Speaker 2: face and I can't breathe. What you're supposed to do
13:50
Speaker 2: was to take the mess and yank the cord to
13:54
Speaker 2: start the flow of oxygen. Well I didn't, and I
13:57
Speaker 2: hadn't been listening to these a lot of attendants that
14:00
Speaker 2: tell me what to do, and so I was struggling.
14:04
Speaker 2: The hijacker to my left hits the woman to my
14:09
Speaker 2: right to say, help her, isn't that interesting? Help her?
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Speaker 2: And the woman helps me, and I got flow of
14:18
Speaker 2: oxygen into my mask and I started to breathe. Wow.
14:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, as you were talking about the plane
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Speaker 1: nose diving in this just horrible chaotic scene that's going down,
14:31
Speaker 1: my mind was going to what's happening in the cockpit
14:34
Speaker 1: because you had said the hijackers took over the plane,
14:38
Speaker 1: but the original pilot and co pilot are still physically
14:42
Speaker 1: flying the plane. The hijackers are not flying the plane.
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Speaker 1: But are they making demands or had they made any
14:48
Speaker 1: demands at this time? And what were those demands as
14:51
Speaker 1: far as you know.
14:52
Speaker 2: Here's what their demands were. Of course not. We don't
14:55
Speaker 2: know this because we are not privy to what's happening
15:00
Speaker 2: other than you're being hijacked by the egypt Revolution and
15:04
Speaker 2: if you did what you were told, you'd not get hurt.
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Speaker 2: That's all that we ever heard from anyone. Their demands
15:09
Speaker 2: were land somewhere to refuel and go over to Libya.
15:15
Speaker 2: That was the request of the hijackers, and I when
15:19
Speaker 2: we did land, if they didn't get what they wanted,
15:21
Speaker 2: they were going to shoot people one by one, first
15:23
Speaker 2: with the Israelis and then with the Americans.
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Speaker 3: But at the time, you don't know this plan or
15:31
Speaker 3: what the hijackers are even asking for. You just know
15:34
Speaker 3: it's super dark out and you're somewhere over the Mediterranean.
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Speaker 4: So then what happens, Yes, when the pilot starts to
15:42
Speaker 4: radio the different airports around the area for us to land,
15:48
Speaker 4: because we were running out of fuel by this time
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Speaker 4: and we had to land somewhere to refuel, and he
15:55
Speaker 4: had radio.
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Speaker 2: Different airports close by, and they all said, no, do
16:00
Speaker 2: not come here, we do not want to hijacked aircraft.
16:04
Speaker 2: The pilot started to head toward Malta Veletta, Malta, which
16:07
Speaker 2: is an island in the Mediterranean, and Malta security said,
16:13
Speaker 2: do not land here. And it's in middle of the night,
16:17
Speaker 2: it's late at night, and our pilot said, I have
16:21
Speaker 2: to land this aircraft. There are ninety eight people on
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Speaker 2: board and we've got three hijackers on board, and I
16:29
Speaker 2: have to land this aircraft. We're about to fall into
16:32
Speaker 2: the sea. They continue to say do not land here.
16:36
Speaker 2: And the pilot gets close to the Malta airport and
16:40
Speaker 2: he sees the runway and it's all lit up, and
16:43
Speaker 2: he starts to land our aircraft. While he's in the
16:46
Speaker 2: process of landing our aircraft, Malta is saying do not
16:51
Speaker 2: land here, do not land here, and the airport, Malta Airport,
17:00
Speaker 2: all the runway lights. So we were in the dark.
17:05
Speaker 2: As he's about to land, we're in the dark. And
17:08
Speaker 2: there was a plane that was about to take off
17:11
Speaker 2: that was told not to move because there was a
17:15
Speaker 2: hijacked aircraft close by. So he was waiting and he
17:19
Speaker 2: saw what had happened, and that pilot turned his aircraft
17:24
Speaker 2: so that his flights could shine a little bit onto
17:28
Speaker 2: the runway and a pilot landed aircraft by the lights
17:33
Speaker 2: of another aircraft. So thank you to that pilot on
17:38
Speaker 2: the other aircraft for seeing that.
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Speaker 1: Of course, none of the passengers, including Jackie, know any
17:55
Speaker 1: of this at that time. They don't know that they
17:58
Speaker 1: narrowly escaped a craft landing and that they were saved
18:02
Speaker 1: by the lights of another plane illuminating the ground. That's
18:05
Speaker 1: something that really sticks out to me about Jackie's story.
18:08
Speaker 1: So much is happening on that plane, but for those
18:12
Speaker 1: being held hostage, they know very little. What Jackie would
18:16
Speaker 1: find out later is that the pilot intentionally went in
18:19
Speaker 1: for a rough landing. He was trying to pop the
18:22
Speaker 1: tires of the plane so that it wouldn't be able
18:24
Speaker 1: to take off again. Jackie also notes in her book
18:28
Speaker 1: that the hijackers were very caught off guard by the
18:31
Speaker 1: rough sudden landing, and.
18:35
Speaker 2: Unfortunately he wasn't able to blow out the tires. But
18:39
Speaker 2: when we landed, that's when things started to take place,
18:44
Speaker 2: and I got moved again. So I got moved from
18:47
Speaker 2: the front to the back to the middle. And now
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Speaker 2: I am asked to stand up Jackie Jackie Fluke, I
18:57
Speaker 2: stand up, and the two hijackers me to the front.
19:01
Speaker 1: Jackie had been grouped with the other Americans on board.
19:05
Speaker 1: There were three of them, Jackie, a woman named Scarlett
19:08
Speaker 1: Marie Rogancamp, and a man named Patrick Scott Baker. The
19:12
Speaker 1: hijackers brought all three Americans to the front of the plane.
19:17
Speaker 2: Patrick's first, and I'm behind Patrick and Scartt is behind
19:22
Speaker 2: me standing up. They tie all three of our hands
19:25
Speaker 2: behind our backs with the neckties, and they immediately pushed
19:30
Speaker 2: Patrick onto the aisle seat. Well, I had a choice.
19:35
Speaker 2: As silly as that may sound, I had a choice.
19:38
Speaker 2: I had a choice now to take the middle seat
19:40
Speaker 2: or the window seat. And I decided I was going
19:45
Speaker 2: to just take the middle seat. And that inner voice
19:50
Speaker 2: starts to speak again. I heard, take the window seat.
19:55
Speaker 2: Get over there, take the window seat, And I sort
19:59
Speaker 2: of argued with it in my head, I'm not going
20:02
Speaker 2: to take the window seat. If I take the window seat,
20:04
Speaker 2: I have to go around Patrick's legs and I have
20:05
Speaker 2: to throw my body into the middle seat, and that's
20:08
Speaker 2: easier than throwing my body into the window seat. So
20:11
Speaker 2: I'm having a conversation in my head, and I'm telling
20:14
Speaker 2: you this lasted for just a second or two. All right,
20:18
Speaker 2: I'll take the window seat. So that's what I sort
20:21
Speaker 2: of said in my head. So I went past Patrick's
20:24
Speaker 2: legs if I passed the middle seat and went over
20:27
Speaker 2: to the window seat. Scarlett was in the middle seat,
20:30
Speaker 2: Patrick was on the aisle, and I was on the
20:33
Speaker 2: window seat.
20:35
Speaker 1: Did you find out their names later or did you
20:38
Speaker 1: speak with them when you were on the plane? You know,
20:41
Speaker 1: were you able to sort of talk?
20:42
Speaker 2: Yeah? What was that like? When we finally were all
20:45
Speaker 2: three together, Patrick says to Scarlet and myself, so, where
20:51
Speaker 2: are you girls from? Oh my god, I started to giggle, like,
21:00
Speaker 2: oh my god, what a question to ask at a
21:02
Speaker 2: time like this. And I sort of giggled. I said, oh,
21:07
Speaker 2: I'm from Houston. And Scarlett said, what a thing to
21:11
Speaker 2: be asking a time like this, And I laughed again,
21:15
Speaker 2: and I thought, well, that is true, what a thing
21:17
Speaker 2: to be asking at a time like this. But I
21:19
Speaker 2: started to laugh and I thought, oh my god, that
21:23
Speaker 2: feels good to laugh. And that was it. That was
21:27
Speaker 2: the conversation. And Scarlett kept going to me and what
21:31
Speaker 2: are you doing? And I said, I'm praying, I'm thinking.
21:35
Speaker 2: And again, I don't know her, just met her, and
21:38
Speaker 2: she said, will you say a prayer for me. I
21:42
Speaker 2: said sure, yeah, She said, I want you to pray
21:46
Speaker 2: the hell Mary. And I grew up as Catholic and
21:52
Speaker 2: I knew that prayer, and so I said it, hell Mary,
21:55
Speaker 2: full of grace. The Lord is with thee and on
21:58
Speaker 2: pray for his centers now the hour of our death. Amen.
22:02
Speaker 1: Jackie learned later that after the plane landed in Malta,
22:06
Speaker 1: the hijackers began negotiations with Maltese authorities. They agreed to
22:11
Speaker 1: let medics approach the plane to ten to the wounded.
22:14
Speaker 1: The medics removed the hijacker who had been shot and killed,
22:18
Speaker 1: as well as the air marshal who killed him. The
22:21
Speaker 1: air marshal was in critical condition but did end up surviving.
22:25
Speaker 1: And then the hijackers did something surprising. They started to
22:29
Speaker 1: let people go free. They freed multiple Filipino passengers and
22:34
Speaker 1: Egyptian passengers, as well as two injured flight attendants. To
22:39
Speaker 1: Jackie and the other hostages, seeing people safely exit the
22:43
Speaker 1: plane filled them with hope that this was all going
22:46
Speaker 1: to be okay.
22:48
Speaker 2: So that's when I thought, Okay, all right, this is okay.
22:52
Speaker 2: You know, they're letting people go. That's awesome. And I
22:55
Speaker 2: thought because I'm a woman, maybe I would be let go,
22:58
Speaker 2: and some of these women would be let go. When
23:00
Speaker 2: some of the women with their children would be let go.
23:05
Speaker 2: That wasn't the case at all, and they immediately started
23:09
Speaker 2: to take the Israeli women. They knew who they were,
23:13
Speaker 2: so they called these two Israeli One of the israel
23:16
Speaker 2: the women, and she went up blodily, thinking she might
23:19
Speaker 2: be released, and as she walked through the door, they
23:25
Speaker 2: shot her in the head. And that's when everything changed
23:30
Speaker 2: inside the airplane. That's when everything changed, and that perhaps
23:35
Speaker 2: we aren't going to be out of here, getting out
23:36
Speaker 2: of this after all. And so there was such a
23:40
Speaker 2: gasp of It's like somebody let the air out in
23:44
Speaker 2: the plane and it was full of hope. And now
23:48
Speaker 2: there was no more hope whatsoever inside that aircraft. And
23:52
Speaker 2: I could tell the moms that the little kids weren't
23:55
Speaker 2: even more nervous. And then they asked for the next
23:59
Speaker 2: Israeli woman. Five minutes went by. They didn't give them
24:02
Speaker 2: the fuels, so they come after the next is Really women.
24:05
Speaker 2: Well we know now what they're doing. We don't get
24:08
Speaker 2: it about the five minutes, but we figured it out,
24:11
Speaker 2: like after so many minutes, they'll be bringing another passenger.
24:16
Speaker 2: And so that's what they did, and next next off
24:19
Speaker 2: was tomorrow. Artzi, well, she knew what was happening with
24:22
Speaker 2: her friend, Nitsa Mendelssohn, and so she fought and she fought,
24:29
Speaker 2: and in the fighting she was shot, but it missed
24:34
Speaker 2: her head. And then when they threw her down the aircraft,
24:38
Speaker 2: like they do everybody else, they shoot them and throw
24:41
Speaker 2: their body down the aircraft onto the tarmac, she starts
24:44
Speaker 2: to move. And when she starts to move, I could
24:48
Speaker 2: see that and I thought, oh my gosh, she needs
24:50
Speaker 2: to stop moving. Play dead, That's what I was thinking.
24:53
Speaker 2: Play dead, Play dead, pretend you're dead.
24:57
Speaker 1: Because Jackie decided to take the window seat, she had
25:00
Speaker 1: a clear view of everything that was happening. She decided
25:04
Speaker 1: that if this happened to her, if she was shot
25:07
Speaker 1: and somehow survived, that she would lay as still as
25:10
Speaker 1: possible and pretend to be dead. The hijackers were demanding
25:14
Speaker 1: fuel for the plane they wanted to fly to Libya.
25:18
Speaker 1: The Maltese authorities were demanding that they release all the
25:21
Speaker 1: hostages first. It was a standoff. The hijackers shot both
25:26
Speaker 1: Tamar Artzi and Nitsen Mendelssohn and said they would continue
25:30
Speaker 1: to kill a hostage every fifteen minutes until they received
25:34
Speaker 1: fuel for the plane. They then turned to the Americans.
25:38
Speaker 1: Patrick was first.
25:40
Speaker 2: He stood there in the doorway, and they shot him.
25:43
Speaker 2: Every time it happened. I closed my eyes, and that
25:45
Speaker 2: was right up front. I was on the bullhead on
25:47
Speaker 2: the right side, and I closed my eyes, and I
25:52
Speaker 2: could hear the thud of hitting the body hitting the
25:56
Speaker 2: tarmacac I went right into prayer, and then I also
25:59
Speaker 2: went into thinking about my life. That was kind of
26:04
Speaker 2: a moment where I knew I was about to die
26:08
Speaker 2: and started thinking about my life. And I thought about
26:13
Speaker 2: just hours before that I was so mad at somebody
26:19
Speaker 2: for cutting in front of me the airport. It didn't
26:22
Speaker 2: matter anymore. And I thought about my life and what
26:28
Speaker 2: I had done and with my life for thirty years,
26:32
Speaker 2: and some of it I was proud of, and some
26:34
Speaker 2: of it I questioned, and I worried about what other
26:39
Speaker 2: people thought of me. And I was, you know, wanted
26:45
Speaker 2: to wear the right clothes and drive the right car
26:47
Speaker 2: and have the right friends, and sometimes didn't always tell
26:50
Speaker 2: the truth. So I thought about all these things, and
26:54
Speaker 2: then I started to one by one put people in
26:58
Speaker 2: front of me that I and told them what I
27:01
Speaker 2: loved about them, how much I appreciated them. I learned
27:08
Speaker 2: from them and said goodbye one by one, my mom,
27:13
Speaker 2: my dad in spirit, and thought my friends, Scott and
27:22
Speaker 2: that like goes ready.
27:25
Speaker 1: Jackie watched as the other American scarlet was also shot
27:29
Speaker 1: and thrown from the plane, and Jackie knew she was next.
27:33
Speaker 1: Fifteen minutes passed and nothing happened, and then more time passed,
27:39
Speaker 1: but nothing happened, and then hours went by and still
27:44
Speaker 1: nothing happened. At this point the sun had risen. It
27:48
Speaker 1: was about ten am. Jackie said that the passengers had
27:52
Speaker 1: begun to feel hopeful yet again. Maybe the hijackers demands
27:56
Speaker 1: were being met, maybe they would all be set free.
28:00
Speaker 1: Jackie looked behind her and saw her original seat mate,
28:03
Speaker 1: and he said to her, you're going to make it.
28:07
Speaker 2: You're going to make it. You're going to make it.
28:10
Speaker 2: And I said, if I don't, please go to the
28:15
Speaker 2: American School and tell Scott how much I love him.
28:19
Speaker 2: And then it wasn't but a few minutes after that.
28:23
Speaker 2: The doors to the cockpit opened, the hijacker comes out.
28:27
Speaker 2: They opened the door to the aircraft. They picked me
28:31
Speaker 2: from my seat, from the window seat and brought me
28:34
Speaker 2: to the front. I got out into the platform and
28:37
Speaker 2: I saw then it was such a beautiful day. It's
28:42
Speaker 2: something so awful to be happening. And I felt a
28:49
Speaker 2: gun to my head. At first, there was a thought.
28:54
Speaker 2: My mind was thinking, Oh, just turn to the hijacker
28:59
Speaker 2: and kick him where it hurts and throw my body
29:03
Speaker 2: down the staircase. That was this idea. This It came
29:08
Speaker 2: from my mind, and I got a message, no fight,
29:15
Speaker 2: no fight. And as soon as that time I got
29:21
Speaker 2: shot in the head. It felt that my eyes went
29:24
Speaker 2: to the back.
29:25
Speaker 5: Of my head and I rolled around. I could feel
29:29
Speaker 5: my rolling and couldn't feel my body hitting the staircase,
29:33
Speaker 5: the metal staircase, but I felt I was rolling.
29:36
Speaker 2: Of some sort. And then it all stopped, and yeah,
29:44
Speaker 2: then I found myself. I opened my eyes quietly, opened
29:47
Speaker 2: my eyes and carefully, and I noticed that I was
29:52
Speaker 2: now on the tarmac and I was right underneath the
29:55
Speaker 2: metal staircase. And the way I landed is my left
30:01
Speaker 2: hand was underneath my chest and my right arm was
30:04
Speaker 2: over my head, and I could just feel how my
30:10
Speaker 2: left arm was falling asleep, and I knew that I
30:14
Speaker 2: needed to move it at some point, and when I landed,
30:19
Speaker 2: I wasn't aware how much time I was there, but
30:21
Speaker 2: it turned out I was there for five hours, in
30:23
Speaker 2: and out of consciousness, and the first thought that came
30:27
Speaker 2: to me was be still. You're gonna be okay, but
30:29
Speaker 2: you just need to be steel.
30:38
Speaker 1: Jackie had been shot in the back of the head.
30:41
Speaker 1: The hijackers made their own bullets, and the one used
30:44
Speaker 1: to shoot her had a low charge of powder, which
30:48
Speaker 1: is probably why it didn't kill her. The bullet shattered
30:52
Speaker 1: the back of her skull and lodged into her brain
30:54
Speaker 1: in the right side, but she was alive. It was
30:59
Speaker 1: cold and at one point and began to lightly rain,
31:02
Speaker 1: which she remembers feeling excruciatingly uncomfortable. Jackie had no ability
31:08
Speaker 1: to measure time at all, but at some point hours later,
31:13
Speaker 1: she heard voices.
31:15
Speaker 2: And I heard a few men around me, and I thought,
31:22
Speaker 2: oh my god, these are the hijackers. What do they
31:25
Speaker 2: want with me now? Are they going to take me
31:28
Speaker 2: somewhere and put me into something or take me and
31:32
Speaker 2: shoot me and make sure I'm dead? And so I
31:35
Speaker 2: thought these were the hijackers and I heard one of
31:38
Speaker 2: the men's voice say, well, let's do this one right,
31:43
Speaker 2: That's what he said. And I felt my body to
31:46
Speaker 2: get lifted up and throw face down onto a metal bed,
31:54
Speaker 2: and I felt the metal bed lift up and go
31:57
Speaker 2: into a vehicle. And I heard the vehicle shut and
32:01
Speaker 2: I heard these three men talking, and I'm thinking, oh
32:05
Speaker 2: my gosh, where do the hijackers taking me now? And
32:09
Speaker 2: I'm in a vehicle. This can't be good. And there
32:13
Speaker 2: is a man to my right, and little did I
32:17
Speaker 2: know that he didn't like looking at the gunshot well
32:20
Speaker 2: on my head, so he decided to flip me over.
32:24
Speaker 2: So he flipped me over. And when he did that,
32:28
Speaker 2: I guess for air and they start screaming and yelling,
32:33
Speaker 2: and I feel the vehicle turn course of direction. We're
32:39
Speaker 2: not going one way anymore, we're going to another. They're
32:42
Speaker 2: screaming and yelling. And I thought, well, these voices don't
32:45
Speaker 2: sound like the hijackers. Who could this be? And the
32:50
Speaker 2: man looked at me and he says, honey, you're alive
32:53
Speaker 2: and you're gonna be okay. And I said, are you
32:57
Speaker 2: guys the good guys or the bad guys? And he said, honey,
33:02
Speaker 2: we're the medics, You're going to be okay. And I
33:06
Speaker 2: sort of passed out and the next thing I know,
33:10
Speaker 2: I'm waking up in the hospital.
33:13
Speaker 1: The Highjuckers had made a deal with the hostage negotiators
33:16
Speaker 1: to have food delivered to the plane, and in exchange,
33:20
Speaker 1: they allowed medics to come and remove the bodies from
33:23
Speaker 1: the tarmac. The medics had been transporting Jackie to the
33:27
Speaker 1: morgue when they realized she was alive, and then quickly
33:31
Speaker 1: changed course and headed to the hospital.
33:34
Speaker 3: And so before we get into this chapter of the
33:37
Speaker 3: surgeries and your recovery, can you tell us about what
33:42
Speaker 3: was continuing to transpire with Egypt Area flight six four eight.
33:49
Speaker 2: Yes, but while I was in the hospital, there was
33:51
Speaker 2: a storming of the plane that took place, and the
33:55
Speaker 2: negotiator who was negotiating that whole event was not trained
34:02
Speaker 2: in negotiating, and I'm not sure why he was given
34:05
Speaker 2: that opportunity to do that. But the whole idea was
34:08
Speaker 2: that they were going to send a commando team, and
34:11
Speaker 2: it was during this time that the United States and
34:14
Speaker 2: other countries had come to the area to help out
34:18
Speaker 2: and the commando team. The negotiation person wanted the Egyptian
34:24
Speaker 2: commandos to do this because it was an Egyptian airliner,
34:28
Speaker 2: and so the US team was still there, but they
34:33
Speaker 2: were not allowed to help out. And the idea that
34:37
Speaker 2: they had this commando team was that they were going
34:41
Speaker 2: to open up the back of the aircraft with a
34:44
Speaker 2: luggage area was and put an explosive of some kind
34:50
Speaker 2: something that was supposed to be just got someone's attention
34:54
Speaker 2: in the back. They would look back to see what
34:57
Speaker 2: that little noise was, and when they did that, the
35:02
Speaker 2: commando team would come up the stairs and storm the aircraft.
35:07
Speaker 2: And what happened was that the explosion was too big.
35:11
Speaker 2: It was it was so big that it blew up
35:15
Speaker 2: the whole back of the aircraft. Of course it had
35:18
Speaker 2: to go somewhere, so it sent a fireball down the
35:22
Speaker 2: aisle and out the aircraft. So some of the commando
35:27
Speaker 2: teams were burned. They had burns on them because the
35:30
Speaker 2: fireball went out the door and the windows were blown out.
35:35
Speaker 2: And also when that happened, people were running everywhere to
35:39
Speaker 2: get off the plane. And the thorders for the commando
35:43
Speaker 2: team was to just shoot people, just start shooting people,
35:47
Speaker 2: and some innocent people got shot.
35:50
Speaker 1: And yeah, so this you know, negotiation rescue mission went
35:57
Speaker 1: terribly wrong, and so then hostages still on the plane
36:02
Speaker 1: then ended up dying from the fire and from being
36:05
Speaker 1: shot by the rescue team.
36:07
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, if he made it out of the aircraft
36:10
Speaker 2: as it's catching on fire. If you were lucky to
36:13
Speaker 2: make it out, which not a lot of people were,
36:16
Speaker 2: then you were running on the tarmac for your life,
36:19
Speaker 2: and the commando team were shooting people. So you were
36:24
Speaker 2: lucky to get out of the plane and lucky to
36:26
Speaker 2: be running around and hopefully not shot. It was a mess.
36:32
Speaker 2: It was so sad, heartbreaking.
36:36
Speaker 1: Five hostages were shot by the hijackers and thrown from
36:39
Speaker 1: the plane. Tamar Artsy, Jackie Flug, and Patrick Baker all survived.
36:46
Speaker 1: Scarlett Rogan camp and Knits and Mendelssohn did not. The
36:50
Speaker 1: majority of people who died that day died from the
36:54
Speaker 1: botch rescue attempt. When the plane was engulfed in flames.
36:58
Speaker 1: Fifty four passengers died, along with two crew members and
37:02
Speaker 1: one of the hijackers. The negotiations went so horribly wrong
37:07
Speaker 1: that day that it has become a case study and
37:10
Speaker 1: want not to do in a hostage negotiation situation. I
37:15
Speaker 1: want to just now move into your this recovery begins.
37:20
Speaker 1: You're transported by ambulance to a hospital. Now doctors are
37:25
Speaker 1: starting to work on you. There's a bullet in your head.
37:28
Speaker 1: It's in the back of your head. Tell us about that.
37:33
Speaker 2: Yes, I was in one of the rooms for a
37:35
Speaker 2: long time, but I'm also in and out of consciousness,
37:37
Speaker 2: so I don't really know what time means to me yet.
37:40
Speaker 2: But when I was awake, I could tell something was
37:43
Speaker 2: wrong with my vision, and I could tell that something
37:47
Speaker 2: was off. But as I'm waiting around an in and
37:51
Speaker 2: out of consciousness, I'm just waiting, and then the next
37:54
Speaker 2: thing I know, I'm in surgery to remove the bullet.
37:59
Speaker 2: I don't know what was happening during that time, but
38:03
Speaker 2: later on, as I start to heal and ended up today,
38:08
Speaker 2: forty years later, I went back to Malta and I
38:12
Speaker 2: found out that they waited. The doctor waited. I didn't
38:16
Speaker 2: know that at the time, but the doctor waited. He
38:19
Speaker 2: felt like I wasn't strong enough, so he waited. I
38:21
Speaker 2: didn't go into surgery right away. He waited a day
38:24
Speaker 2: because he thought I wasn't strong enough to make it
38:27
Speaker 2: out of the surgery. And also there was a hijacker.
38:32
Speaker 2: Eventually I found this out. The hijacker who shot everyone
38:36
Speaker 2: also escaped from the plane and was one of those
38:41
Speaker 2: people that was running around the tarmac, and he was
38:46
Speaker 2: also hurt by the pilots when we landed and they
38:51
Speaker 2: started the air raid onto the plane. Hours later, the
38:56
Speaker 2: pilot took the axe and hit him over the head,
39:00
Speaker 2: and so he was part of the group that went
39:03
Speaker 2: into the hospital and they put him in the hospital,
39:07
Speaker 2: and eventually Patrick Baker, who lived pointed out that he
39:11
Speaker 2: was a hijacker, so they took him out and put
39:14
Speaker 2: him under arrest, even though he was under But yeah,
39:17
Speaker 2: so I'm now leaving Malta airport and the Red Cross
39:21
Speaker 2: is taking me, which I thought was really cool. And
39:24
Speaker 2: we're in a Red Cross airport that has all these
39:28
Speaker 2: cots and beds and I was in one of them.
39:32
Speaker 2: And we're heading over to Lunchitial, Germany to trilac and
39:35
Speaker 2: recuperate in the Army hospital there in Launchitial, Germany.
39:40
Speaker 3: And so you're flound to Germany. That's where Scott flies
39:46
Speaker 3: to see you for the first time after this has
39:48
Speaker 3: all happened. Yes, how long are you in Germany before
39:54
Speaker 3: you returned to the United States.
39:56
Speaker 2: I was there for a couple of weeks, I think,
39:58
Speaker 2: and then it was to go back to the United
40:01
Speaker 2: States to go home, and we were told that we
40:04
Speaker 2: could go to Minneapolis, where Scott was from, or could
40:08
Speaker 2: go to Houston. And I thought we should go to
40:10
Speaker 2: Houston because that was my support system there, but Scott
40:14
Speaker 2: really wanted to go to Minneapolis, and I got talked
40:17
Speaker 2: into that and that was fine because I love the
40:20
Speaker 2: snow and I loved his family, and I thought maybe
40:24
Speaker 2: that would be a good start for me. And as
40:26
Speaker 2: it turned out, moving to Minnesota to be taken care
40:30
Speaker 2: of by June flu Scott's mother, was the biggest gift
40:35
Speaker 2: I could have evergotten.
40:38
Speaker 1: Jackie came back to the US and was met with
40:40
Speaker 1: a media circus. Everyone wanted an interview, but Jackie said
40:45
Speaker 1: she wouldn't be ready for that for years. She needed
40:48
Speaker 1: to focus on her recovery.
40:51
Speaker 2: After you get shot in the head, you may come
40:53
Speaker 2: out alive, but you don't come out the same ever.
40:56
Speaker 2: There's always something that's going to be damaged. And I
41:00
Speaker 2: was very, very scared, very scared, still thinking the hijackers
41:05
Speaker 2: are going to confind me even though I'm in Minnesota
41:08
Speaker 2: and Eventually that sort of dissipitated. But I started to
41:13
Speaker 2: notice that I'd get lost a lot, even in the
41:17
Speaker 2: bedroom if I had a hard time finding my way
41:20
Speaker 2: from the bedroom to the bathroom. So we ended up
41:23
Speaker 2: having to put colored footsteps to go to which bedroom,
41:28
Speaker 2: and then what color went with what? And I forgot
41:31
Speaker 2: the color the color went to what room? And I
41:34
Speaker 2: couldn't tell time anymore. I knew it was eight thirty,
41:39
Speaker 2: but what do you do at eight thirty? And then
41:41
Speaker 2: someone said, well, don't forget there's an eight thirty am
41:44
Speaker 2: and an eight thirty pm. Oh my gosh, So what
41:47
Speaker 2: do people do at eight thirty in the morning and
41:49
Speaker 2: what people do at eight thirty at night? And I
41:53
Speaker 2: couldn't count money anymore. I had to relearn how to
41:56
Speaker 2: count money. And my short term memory was just about nothing.
42:02
Speaker 2: And I did have long term memory where I remembered
42:06
Speaker 2: from the path the events and then my past as well.
42:11
Speaker 2: And then I started to have epileptic seizures as a
42:15
Speaker 2: result of being shot.
42:17
Speaker 1: The physical trauma to Jackie's brain was immense. She writes
42:22
Speaker 1: about this in her book, saying a neurologist explained that
42:26
Speaker 1: a layer of protective gel inside our heads normally provides
42:30
Speaker 1: a soft cushion or buffer between the brain and the skull.
42:35
Speaker 1: In my case, the fluid had drained out the bullet
42:38
Speaker 1: hole in my head. That meant whenever I moved, my
42:41
Speaker 1: brain pressed directly against my skull, causing shooting pain. It
42:45
Speaker 1: would take about a year for doctors to find the
42:48
Speaker 1: right medicine that would help Jackie to stop her seizures.
42:51
Speaker 1: The road to recovery was long and difficult, and it
42:55
Speaker 1: wasn't just the physical pain that haunted her.
42:58
Speaker 3: The toll of now having to relearn things that you
43:04
Speaker 3: probably can't even remember. How early in your life you
43:07
Speaker 3: understood eight thirty am, eight thirty pm, And now here
43:10
Speaker 3: you are, thirty years old having to relearn these basic
43:15
Speaker 3: things about just our day to day life. How did
43:17
Speaker 3: that impact your relationship with Scott and the people close
43:22
Speaker 3: to you?
43:24
Speaker 2: Quite challenging to be truthful about it all. And also
43:28
Speaker 2: at that time, I had a master's degree, so I
43:30
Speaker 2: had been through school. And after I got shot in
43:33
Speaker 2: the head, I got tested. My reading got tested, and
43:35
Speaker 2: I was testing at a kindergarten reading level, and then
43:38
Speaker 2: remembering comprehending at a kindergarten reading level, So all of
43:42
Speaker 2: a sudden, I don't have that reading level anymore. And
43:45
Speaker 2: also my teaching career was ended because I couldn't keep up.
43:49
Speaker 2: And then I was started to hear things like you're
43:52
Speaker 2: not the person I'm married, You're not the person that
43:55
Speaker 2: with my friend, And I thought, how can I be?
43:59
Speaker 2: I have gone through this massive experience. Plus I'm not
44:03
Speaker 2: just dealing with coming back and healing from a hostage situation.
44:08
Speaker 2: I'm coming back and trying to heal from this trauma
44:12
Speaker 2: that took parts of my side. No longer have parts
44:15
Speaker 2: of my side anymore. You know, I have an epilepsy now.
44:18
Speaker 2: So I was dealing with all that stuff, and then
44:21
Speaker 2: some people would say, you're not that person anymore that
44:24
Speaker 2: I knew, and I thought, I know I'm not, and
44:28
Speaker 2: I was sure that I'd get her back. I was
44:31
Speaker 2: sure of it, but I never did.
44:35
Speaker 1: Jackie says the reality is that she would never be
44:38
Speaker 1: the same person she was before that plane flight, before
44:40
Speaker 1: the shooting, but she was so determined to keep going.
44:45
Speaker 1: Jackie said this experience made her think about her life
44:48
Speaker 1: and her values in a way that she never had before.
44:52
Speaker 1: She started to really think, what kind of person do
44:54
Speaker 1: I want to be so I.
44:57
Speaker 2: Started to just dig deep into and started to get
45:02
Speaker 2: help along the way from people that helped me find
45:05
Speaker 2: a way out, through therapists, through doctors, counselor if anyone
45:12
Speaker 2: suggested something that I should go see someone. It did
45:16
Speaker 2: not take long. It was by the end of the
45:18
Speaker 2: day I was on the phone with someone. I uncovered
45:22
Speaker 2: every single rock to help me get back to some
45:26
Speaker 2: kind of normalcy, some kind of adjustment. But I kept
45:30
Speaker 2: having this dream that I would open up this package
45:34
Speaker 2: from the hijacker and I would open it up and
45:37
Speaker 2: be an explosion, and the hijacker would say, Haha, I
45:42
Speaker 2: got you now. And that was a recurring dream, but
45:46
Speaker 2: definitely a post traumatic stress syndrome. I was didn't want
45:50
Speaker 2: to go outside. Scott and I moved in with his
45:53
Speaker 2: mom and dad and Hopkins, Minnesota at the time, and
45:58
Speaker 2: I didn't want to get out of the house. But
46:00
Speaker 2: I started to a little by little, and then I
46:03
Speaker 2: started to meet people and a little bit of meat
46:06
Speaker 2: started to come out. But I did meet up with
46:09
Speaker 2: a therapist, and you know, things like this, some of
46:13
Speaker 2: these situations we as humans find ourselves on sometimes takes
46:18
Speaker 2: a very long time to heal from. A very long time.
46:23
Speaker 2: But I just did the work and I didn't give
46:25
Speaker 2: up and stayed the course and got the help that
46:28
Speaker 2: I needed along the way. And all of a sudden,
46:31
Speaker 2: one day I started to laugh, which is foreign to
46:34
Speaker 2: me at that time. And when they I started to smile,
46:39
Speaker 2: you know, little by little. But it did not come
46:42
Speaker 2: because of just me. It came because the angels are
46:47
Speaker 2: in my path that helped me get where I wanted
46:49
Speaker 2: to go, the angels and human form that were there
46:53
Speaker 2: along the way.
46:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you talked about how you originally didn't want
47:00
Speaker 3: to go back to Minnesota, you wanted to go back
47:03
Speaker 3: to Texas, but it ends up because Scott wanted to
47:07
Speaker 3: go to Minnesota, that that's where you go. And it
47:09
Speaker 3: ends up being this incredible gift because his mother takes
47:12
Speaker 3: excellent care of you. Eventually, though your relationship with Scott,
47:16
Speaker 3: you guys divorce. He's you know, having a very difficult
47:21
Speaker 3: time navigating this new life with this new version of
47:25
Speaker 3: you and accepting that. And you have taken this healing
47:30
Speaker 3: journey and been so determined to look at your values
47:34
Speaker 3: and what's important in a new way. How does that
47:38
Speaker 3: lead you to the next chapter?
47:41
Speaker 2: After I divorced. I was single for about seven years,
47:45
Speaker 2: and then I met my husband to be the second one.
47:49
Speaker 2: We ended up having a son, and I eventually wrote
47:53
Speaker 2: a book about this situation. And when I first had this,
47:59
Speaker 2: somebody was saying I should write a book. I didn't
48:02
Speaker 2: even know what to write about, because who wants to
48:04
Speaker 2: hear just about a story? And as time went on,
48:07
Speaker 2: I started to learn some of the lessons I was
48:10
Speaker 2: learning from the hijacking. And once I started to learn
48:13
Speaker 2: the lessons, then I felt like I was ready to
48:16
Speaker 2: write a book. So nine years after the hijacking, I
48:20
Speaker 2: started writing. In ten years after the hijacking, the book
48:23
Speaker 2: came out. And now that book had all these things
48:28
Speaker 2: in it, lessons that I learned and people that helped
48:31
Speaker 2: me get where I wanted to go, and how I
48:33
Speaker 2: even came out of this idea of hatred and bitterness
48:39
Speaker 2: to more of forgiving and letting go and getting myself
48:43
Speaker 2: off the hook in the sense of holding on to
48:46
Speaker 2: such anger and bitterness.
48:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's such a mountain to climb after
48:52
Speaker 3: something like that is not only done to you, but
48:55
Speaker 3: you're in this position of being forced to witness something
48:59
Speaker 3: just so increas horrific, and you know one of those
49:03
Speaker 3: deaths is Scarlet. How does the contact start between you
49:08
Speaker 3: and Scarlet's mother after the hijacking? And can you tell
49:11
Speaker 3: me a little bit about those conversations.
49:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, she found out my phone number, she called me
49:18
Speaker 2: and I she wanted to know what Scarlett's last words
49:22
Speaker 2: were and what she was like, and since I was
49:26
Speaker 2: the last one to see her, and I told her
49:29
Speaker 2: that we said prayers together and I said to hell
49:32
Speaker 2: Mary for her, and she goes, yeah, she really likes
49:35
Speaker 2: that hell Mary. And we shared this conversation for I
49:39
Speaker 2: don't know, maybe about thirty minutes, and I think that
49:42
Speaker 2: she got what she needed and what she wanted and
49:45
Speaker 2: that was it.
49:47
Speaker 1: Jackie's first book, Miles to Go Before I Sleep, chronicles
49:51
Speaker 1: the hijacking and her recovery. She is releasing another book
49:55
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five called Wake Up. It's Time to
49:57
Speaker 1: say Yes to creating a life worth lof. In her
50:01
Speaker 1: new book, Jackie talks about saying yes to life. She
50:05
Speaker 1: writes that after the hijacking and the years of recovering
50:08
Speaker 1: from her brain injury, life was still there waiting for her,
50:12
Speaker 1: the good stuff and the hard stuff. She learned how
50:15
Speaker 1: to say yes to life, to get back in the
50:17
Speaker 1: saddle and back on airplanes. She knew if she didn't,
50:21
Speaker 1: her life would be smaller and she would have fewer
50:23
Speaker 1: opportunities to see the world. And one of the stories
50:26
Speaker 1: she tells in this new book is her return to Malta.
50:30
Speaker 2: I was going back to Malta's to find as many
50:33
Speaker 2: people as I possibly could to say thank you for
50:36
Speaker 2: saving my life. And I did, and that is a
50:39
Speaker 2: beautiful story. I started to write about these stories that
50:43
Speaker 2: I've experienced in my life, and not about the hijacking,
50:47
Speaker 2: because I already wrote a book about that, and that
50:49
Speaker 2: book is over two hundred pages about the hijacking. So
50:53
Speaker 2: it was more of stories I've experienced over time. And
50:56
Speaker 2: also that book or My Story, launched a twenty five
51:03
Speaker 2: year career in motivational speaking, and I spoken all over
51:08
Speaker 2: the world telling the story and the lessons that I
51:11
Speaker 2: learned from it. And when I started to write another
51:14
Speaker 2: book years and years later, which is seven years ago
51:17
Speaker 2: from me anyway, I felt like there was so much
51:20
Speaker 2: of my story that hadn't been told. And I retired
51:24
Speaker 2: after my twenty five years of speaking on the circuit,
51:29
Speaker 2: and I retired and during retirement, I started to shut
51:34
Speaker 2: down and I didn't even know it. I continued to
51:38
Speaker 2: be a mom and a wife and a friend, but
51:40
Speaker 2: I was on autopilot, cruise control, sort of sleep at
51:44
Speaker 2: the wheel. And I called my business coach, Mark LeBlanc,
51:49
Speaker 2: and I said, I think there's another book in me.
51:51
Speaker 2: And little did I know that I would be on
51:53
Speaker 2: an entirely different adventure, a new journey. I thought the
51:58
Speaker 2: journey after the hijacking was a big deal, but this
52:01
Speaker 2: journey was just as big. But the book is called
52:05
Speaker 2: wake Up. It's time to say yes to creating a
52:08
Speaker 2: life worth loving. Wake up to who you are, Wake
52:10
Speaker 2: up to what is possible. Wake up to a life
52:13
Speaker 2: worth loving. Like I said, I didn't even know it
52:15
Speaker 2: was on this journey, But what I was really doing
52:18
Speaker 2: was creating a new starting line to what is possible.
52:23
Speaker 2: Most of us live our lives in quiet resignation and
52:26
Speaker 2: may not know it. So the essence of the book
52:28
Speaker 2: wake Up is to jop people out of where we
52:31
Speaker 2: are and what we've given up, where they've given up.
52:35
Speaker 2: I gave up. I gave up, but didn't even know it.
52:40
Speaker 2: I kept thinking I want more out of relationships. I
52:43
Speaker 2: want more out of my marriage. So now I'm in
52:46
Speaker 2: my second marriage, I want more out of life. So
52:49
Speaker 2: this book is for more joy, more peace, more passion,
52:53
Speaker 2: more adventure, more happiness, more balanced. I'm excited about this book,
52:58
Speaker 2: if you can probably telling.
53:03
Speaker 3: What an interview with Jackie that was intense. When we
53:07
Speaker 3: first connected with Jackie about doing this interview, one of
53:11
Speaker 3: her concerns was that it had been so long since
53:13
Speaker 3: she had told the story, and in speaking with her,
53:17
Speaker 3: it was so evident how well she was able to
53:20
Speaker 3: recall everything, which I think it's just makes it so
53:24
Speaker 3: clear that something like this really never leaves you.
53:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, she really was able to talk about it and
53:31
Speaker 1: vivid detail, which is really impressive. Honestly, after going through
53:35
Speaker 1: something so traumatic, and I imagine her writing the book
53:40
Speaker 1: and then being an inspirational speaker for so many years,
53:43
Speaker 1: she has had a lot of practice speaking and telling
53:47
Speaker 1: her story, and it's such an inspiring story. I'm just
53:51
Speaker 1: so impressed by her. She's so kind and thoughtful, introspective
53:55
Speaker 1: and just even like hearing everything that she has survived
54:00
Speaker 1: is pretty wild.
54:01
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. And that moment when she talked about
54:05
Speaker 3: how she had had that initial frustration with the men
54:08
Speaker 3: who had cut in front of her in line, and
54:10
Speaker 3: then you're realizing you're on this hijacked plane and you're
54:12
Speaker 3: thinking why did I let that bother me? It's like, wow,
54:15
Speaker 3: that is how a near death experience like that changes
54:20
Speaker 3: your perspective. And we do so many interviews with people
54:24
Speaker 3: who have experienced trauma, and I think that it's really
54:28
Speaker 3: important to maintain our composure even when a story is
54:32
Speaker 3: getting really emotional, because it's not our story, it's it's theirs.
54:36
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's hard though, it's really hard.
54:38
Speaker 3: And in this one, I had a moment where I
54:41
Speaker 3: was like, oh my gosh, I can feel that lump
54:43
Speaker 3: forming in my throat. And it was actually the moment
54:46
Speaker 3: that Jackie talked about the other pilot at the Malta
54:49
Speaker 3: airport realizing what was happening, that the airport was going
54:53
Speaker 3: to abandon this hijacked plane by turning off all the
54:56
Speaker 3: lights and saying like, don't land here, We're not going
54:58
Speaker 3: to help you land here, and he turns on his lights.
55:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
55:01
Speaker 1: I assume that the airport did that in an effort
55:03
Speaker 1: to try to get them to like fly away and
55:05
Speaker 1: not land. Yeah, But the way Jackie told it is like, no,
55:08
Speaker 1: that's not an option. They're almost out of fuel, so
55:10
Speaker 1: it's like they have to land, and the idea of landing,
55:13
Speaker 1: like in the dark where you can't see the ground
55:16
Speaker 1: is so scary.
55:18
Speaker 3: That pilot that turned on his lights, he gave them
55:22
Speaker 3: the opportunity to save lives on that plane.
55:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very touching. You know.
55:27
Speaker 3: I was telling my mom about the interview after we
55:29
Speaker 3: did it, and I actually started crying a little bit
55:32
Speaker 3: when I told her that part, just because I'm like, whoa,
55:34
Speaker 3: you know, he had that moment of Okay, if I
55:37
Speaker 3: were in this pilot's shoes, I would want this for me.
55:40
Speaker 3: And you know, also to think of how the Malta
55:43
Speaker 3: airport handled that as devastating and that was a glimmer
55:48
Speaker 3: of hope within a really tragic story.
55:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
55:52
Speaker 1: So, you know, Jackie has written and published two books,
55:56
Speaker 1: which we mentioned in the episode, and we always like
55:59
Speaker 1: to read books that our interviewees have written. You actually,
56:02
Speaker 1: you read the first book and I read the second book.
56:05
Speaker 1: A lot of the first book was sort of covered
56:07
Speaker 1: in the episode, but I'm sure there's so much more
56:09
Speaker 1: in there that's not I'm just curious if there's anything
56:11
Speaker 1: else that stands out to you.
56:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, the first book the Jackie wrote that I read
56:16
Speaker 3: is called Miles to Go Before I Sleep, and it's
56:19
Speaker 3: an incredible retelling of not only the hijacking but her
56:24
Speaker 3: life before and after. And she really dives into what
56:30
Speaker 3: happened on the plane in every detail that she has
56:34
Speaker 3: learned since and that she can remember, and you know,
56:37
Speaker 3: particularly her interactions with other passengers and how there's this
56:41
Speaker 3: sort of instantaneous bond that happened between them. You know,
56:45
Speaker 3: you're watching someone walk to what will be either the
56:47
Speaker 3: end of their life or a chance to get to safety,
56:52
Speaker 3: and especially the moments that she shares about sitting next
56:55
Speaker 3: to Scarlet in that seat in the last moments of
56:58
Speaker 3: her life. I thought the book was incredible and I'd
57:02
Speaker 3: recommend it to anyone.
57:04
Speaker 1: Awesome, And Jackie just came out with a new book,
57:07
Speaker 1: Wake Up. It's time to say yes to creating a
57:09
Speaker 1: life worth loving. And this book sounds like it's very
57:14
Speaker 1: different from her first book. In the beginning of the book,
57:17
Speaker 1: she opens it and acknowledges that she survived this plane
57:22
Speaker 1: hijacking was this really intense, big thing that she went
57:26
Speaker 1: through at a relatively young age. At thirty years old.
57:29
Speaker 1: And I just want to read this one segment because
57:32
Speaker 1: it kind of explains what's to come in the book.
57:35
Speaker 1: She's talking about like that period of time as she's
57:37
Speaker 1: recovering from the plane hijacking. She says, someone told me
57:42
Speaker 1: what happened to me was so huge and horrible. How
57:45
Speaker 1: could anything else compare? Perhaps because it was so big,
57:48
Speaker 1: I had gotten the big bad thing out of the
57:51
Speaker 1: way at an early age, and nothing from then on
57:54
Speaker 1: could compare. But she talks about life going on and
57:58
Speaker 1: that that's actually just didn't end up being true for her.
58:02
Speaker 1: She went through divorce at forty eight, she was diagnosed
58:05
Speaker 1: with stage three colon cancer when she had a six
58:07
Speaker 1: year old child. You know, she's dealt with like some
58:10
Speaker 1: really difficult bone breaking type of injuries and just sort
58:16
Speaker 1: of like the things in life that are hard. And
58:20
Speaker 1: I really like the perspective she has in this book
58:23
Speaker 1: because she tells a lot of stories from her life.
58:26
Speaker 1: She talks about like stories from childhood, she talks about
58:30
Speaker 1: stories from her adulthood. She goes on a European adventure
58:33
Speaker 1: with one of her friends and they like drive on
58:36
Speaker 1: the Audubon, which just sounds terrifying to me. She talks
58:41
Speaker 1: about like going on a whitewater rafting trip and being
58:44
Speaker 1: really underprepared and scared, and it sort of hit me
58:48
Speaker 1: when I was reading it, like going on an adventure
58:52
Speaker 1: driving on the Audubon, Like going on a whitewater rafting
58:55
Speaker 1: trip as an adult can be like a scary, adventurous thing,
58:58
Speaker 1: no matter what you've been through. But I really appreciate
59:01
Speaker 1: the way that she's approached her life, Like you could
59:04
Speaker 1: see it going a different way where she had this
59:06
Speaker 1: terrifying experience that many people would never really know what
59:10
Speaker 1: that's like, and then she could sort of shell up
59:12
Speaker 1: and have a small life. And like, no judgment to
59:15
Speaker 1: someone who reacts that way, but she has really gone
59:17
Speaker 1: the opposite where she is seeking out and continues to
59:21
Speaker 1: seek out ways to put herself in like situations where
59:26
Speaker 1: she's potentially taking risks or doing something uncomfortable, because that
59:30
Speaker 1: is what is important to her about living life. So
59:32
Speaker 1: that's kind of what her book is about.
59:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's amazing, I'd love to read it. I also
59:36
Speaker 3: think it's such an interesting way to like lead into
59:40
Speaker 3: it about this big, bad thing has already happened and
59:43
Speaker 3: so now it's like I can handle whatever's next. But
59:46
Speaker 3: part of I think the human condition and resilience is
59:49
Speaker 3: that the more something is in your past, it's like
59:54
Speaker 3: you're more focused on what's in front of you. It
59:56
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that that ever becomes a small moment in
59:59
Speaker 3: time to her, but you know, how long can you
1:00:02
Speaker 3: live in that moment? And she's really stepped out of
1:00:05
Speaker 3: it and it was just a pleasure speaking with her.
1:00:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. So that's our episode for today. We'll
1:00:12
Speaker 1: be back next week.
1:00:13
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
1:00:17
Speaker 3: If you have a story for us, we would love
1:00:19
Speaker 3: to hear it. Our email is The Knife at Exactlyrightmedia
1:00:22
Speaker 3: dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram at
1:00:25
Speaker 3: the Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
1:00:28
Speaker 1: This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
1:00:31
Speaker 1: by me Hannah Smith and.
1:00:32
Speaker 3: Me Paytia Eating. Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.
1:00:37
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.
1:00:39
Speaker 3: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
1:00:42
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
1:00:44
Speaker 3: Artwork five Asa Lilac.
1:00:46
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer,