The skies belong to us : love and terror in the golden age of hijacking /
In an America torn apart by the Vietnam War and the demise of Sixties idealism, airplane hijackings were astonishingly routine. Over a five-year period starting in 1968, the desperate and disillusioned seized commercial jets nearly once a week. Some hijackers wished to escape to foreign lands; other...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Crown Publishers,
[2013]
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | In an America torn apart by the Vietnam War and the demise of Sixties idealism, airplane hijackings were astonishingly routine. Over a five-year period starting in 1968, the desperate and disillusioned seized commercial jets nearly once a week. Some hijackers wished to escape to foreign lands; others aimed to swap hostages for sacks of cash. The longest-distance hijacking in American history took place in 1972 when a shattered Army veteran and a mischievous party girl, Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow, commandeered Western Airlines Flight 701 as a vague war protest. Through a combination of savvy and dumb luck, the couple managed to flee across an ocean with a half-million dollars in ransom, a feat that made them notorious around the globe. Journalist Brendan I. Koerner spent four years chronicling this madcap tale, which involves a cast of characters ranging from exiled Black Panthers to African despots to French movie stars.--From publisher description. Documents the 1972 story behind the longest-distance hijacking in U.S. history, tracing the events of the hijacking against a backdrop of civil unrest and the skyjacking wave of the early 1970s. |
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| Physical Description: | 318 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-308) and index. |
| ISBN: | 0307886107 9780307886101 |