Hijacking and Hostages in Syria

Thomas Boyatt, a native of Cincinnati, entered the Foreign Service in 1960 and served for 25 years. He held ambassadorships in Burkina Faso and Colombia. In August 1969, Boyatt was on a TWA flight stopping in Athens on its way to Tel Aviv when the plane was hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and re-routed to Syria. As the flight attendants took away passengers’ shoes and other loose items in anticipation of a crash landing, the hijackers announced that passengers would have sixty seconds to evacuate before the PFLP blew up the plane. Boyatt distinguished himself by helping organize the evacuation, rescuing injured civilians, and negotiating the passengers’ release.

When the plane skidded to a halt on the tarmac, Boyatt’s first action was to help passengers get away from the plane. At the bottom of the escape slide, he waited for the other passengers to evacuate, and then herded them away from the aircraft – barefoot across a field of prickle briars. “You know how it is when you’re an FSO overseas,” Boyatt explained, “you take care of American citizens, it’s one of the basic things that you do.”

“You know how it is when you’re an FSO overseas. [You] take care of American citizens. It’s one of the basic things that you do.”

Thomas Boyatt

As Boyatt reached safety, he glanced back and saw two injured passengers crumpled near the plane, with a third standing near them. Boyatt and a nearby soldier rushed to help them away from the plane just before the front third exploded.

“The two of us,” recalled Boyatt, “ran back across the field of prickle briars, in our bare feet, and…we made a fireman’s seat for the one lady, a heavy lady, on the ground who had broken her leg, which looked just like an L; it was a mess. She’s thrashing around, screaming; she’s in shock, kind of fighting us, like a drowning person. We had a hell of a time with her, [but] we finally got her into the seat.” The other injured civilian was able to limp along holding onto Boyatt’s shoulder, and the five of them walked back across the field–not a moment too soon. Just as they reached safety, the front third of the airplane exploded.

However, the passengers weren’t out of danger yet. Syrian airport police with heavy machine guns approached and took them all into custody. In a country still stinging from the Six-Day War with Israel, where the United States had no diplomatic relations, and with a planeload of Jewish passengers, Boyatt decided he had to take charge.

“I pulled out my black passport, and I said, ‘I’m an American diplomatic officer, and this is an American flag carrier. We’re here not of our own volition, and these people are under my protection.’ And the officer at the airport said, ‘Well, everyone has to be interrogated.’…I had visions, bad visions, so I said, ‘I have to be present during the interrogations.’ So all that night into the next morning, I was present while they interrogated people.”

Boyatt’s vocal advocacy eventually earned him time in a Syrian jail cell, but within a few days he and the other passengers were released. The only exceptions were two Israeli men who were later exchanged for a Syrian fighter pilot. Thanks to Boyatt’s efforts, no further harm came to the passengers.