Uli Derickson; hailed as hero for actions during '85 hijacking
LOS ANGELES -- Uli Derickson, a flight attendant who displayed remarkable courage while dealing with terrorists threatening passengers aboard a hijacked international flight in 1985, has died. She was 60.
Ms. Derickson, who had battled cancer since August 2003, died Friday at her home outside Tucson, Ariz., her son, Matthew Derickson, told the Los Angeles Times.
Ms. Derickson was the lead flight attendant on TWA Flight 847, carrying 152 passengers and crew on a flight from Athens, Greece, to Rome on June 14, 1985. Just after takeoff, two Lebanese gunmen commandeered the plane and started it on an odyssey of terror and brutality throughout the Middle East.
The violence was immediate. Derickson took a kick to the chest from one of the hijackers and hit the ground before being kicked again. One of the hijackers forced her to go with him into the cockpit, while the other -- who was holding a grenade with the pin removed -- started kicking open the door. Once inside, they pistol-whipped the plane's pilot and flight engineer.
The terrorists spoke no English, but, as Ms. Derickson found out, one spoke German just as she did.
This put her at the center of the drama for the next 55 hours as she translated the tense communication between the plane's crew and the hijackers.
The plane was diverted first to Beirut, where Derickson successfully pleaded with the hijackers to obtain the release of 17 elderly women and two children. The plane then headed back in the air, this time for Algiers, while the hijackers pressed their demands for the release of hundreds of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel. While en route, the hijackers forced Ms. Derickson to collect the passports of all on board and demanded that she identify all the Jews. Ms. Derickson cleverly told them that the passports did not indicate religious preference and found ways to shield certain names from the hijackers.
Ms. Derickson, along with the other flight attendants and many of the passengers, was released when the plane returned to Algiers for a final time. But 39 American men were flown back to Beirut, where they were held for 17 days. They were finally exchanged for just 31 of the more than 700 prisoners the hijackers had originally sought.
In the late 1980s, she served as a consultant for the NBC-TV movie, ''The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story." Actress Lindsay Wagner played Ms. Derickson. The film was nominated for five Emmys in 1988.
She also advised TWA,
Throughout her life, she didn't see herself as a hero.
''They threw me a hot potato, and I had to handle it," she said.
Ms. Derickson leaves her son.
