Hijacked - Softcover

Hirschman, Dave

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0440226473 ISBN 13: 9780440226475

Publisher: Dell, 1998

Synopsis

David Sanders, Jim Tucker, and Andy Peterson had taken off on a regular "out-and-back," delivering and picking up packages for FedEx's next-day service. They had one jumpseat passenger, an off-duty colleague who they assumed was simply taking advantage of the FedEx perk allowing virtually all employees to ride the company jet for free. The shock came twenty minutes later, before the plane had reached its normal cruising altitude.

The lone passenger attacked the pilots with hammers and a spear gun. He'd had his diabolical plan in the works for months: By crashing the plane into the Federal Express Memphis hub, he'd ruin the company, which he felt had treated him unfairly. With superhuman strength fueled by sheer fury, the attacker struck. What he didn't count on was the skill and intelligence of the pilots. While Sanders and Peterson tried to stop the relentless battering, copilot Tucker swung the aircraft into dangerous flight maneuvers in an attempt to literally knock the man off his feet. Covered in their own blood and exhausted from the struggle, the pilots finally managed to subdue their attacker, returning the plane safely back to Memphis as heroes.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

The gripping record of a ``routine'' Federal Express fast- freight flight between Memphis and San Jose in April 1994 that went horribly wrong. There were three crewmen on the DC-10 that night: David Sanders, the captain, a cool, 49-year-old pilot from west Texas; Jim Tucker, the copilot, a tall, powerful athlete; and Andy Anderson, a flight engineer from Mississippi. They had one passenger, Auburn Calloway, also a FedEx pilot, and a man with serious problems. An African-American, Calloway believed that he had been the object of racist harassment in the navy and at FedEx. The divorced Calloway, a karate expert, suspected that he was about to be fired and would thus be unable to provide for his two children. He drafted a will and, acting coolly and with caution, managed to hide hammers, a speargun, and a knife on the plane. He intended to kill the crew and crash the plane into a residential area, believing that the crash would be treated as an accident. Striking swiftly, he managed to assault Tucker and Anderson, fracturing their skulls. But they didn't lose consciousness and began fighting back. Tucker put the plane through a series of dizzying maneuvers, tossing the rest of the crew and Calloway about the cabin, causing Calloway to drop the speargun with which he had been attempting to kill Sanders. Hirschman, a reporter for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, provides a moment-by-moment reconstruction of the crew's long, bloody battle with Calloway. Bleeding, disoriented, weakening quickly, Tucker and Anderson nonetheless managed to restrain their assailant. Sanders, in great pain (Calloway had almost severed one of his ears in the initial attack) miraculously brought the plane into Memphis for a safe landing. Hirschman provides a summary of Calloway's trial. Convicted, he was sentenced to life in prison. A moving portrait of three quiet heroes. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

On April 7, 1994, two days before a scheduled disciplinary hearing, FedEx flight engineer Auburn Calloway joined the ranks of disgruntled employees who mix revenge with violence when he hijacked a DC-10 cargo jet en route from Memphis to San Jose. His plan to kill the crew and crash the plane backfired when the three-man crew--David Sanders (pilot), Jim Tucker (copilot), and Andy Peterson (flight engineer)--did not succumb to his brutal hammer blows to their skulls. With Tucker and Peterson in the cabin trying to subdue the agitated Calloway, Sanders landed the plane against heavy odds: the freight and fuel were too heavy, the approach speed was too fast, and parts of the plane had fallen off. Reporter and pilot Hirschman, who was on the story from the beginning, describes the thwarted hijacking; recovery of the injured airmen; and trial of Calloway. The bravery of the crewmen shines throughout as they saved the plane, the company, and the community from a major disaster. Jennifer Henderson

About this edition

• Publisher: Dell
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0440226473
• ISBN 13: 9780440226475
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336