Castro next shifted his attention to military ID cards (servicemen usually travel on their ID cards rather than passports). Aboard the plane were an Army reservist named Kurt Karlson and six Navy divers returning from an underwater job in Greece. Castro and Said forced the divers to move to widely separated seats, yelling, "Marines! The New Jersey!" The battleship New Jersey had recently fired on Beirut, and 1,500 Marines had been stationed at the Beirut airport.
Then Castro ordered all passengers to sit with their heads between their legs without looking up.
When TWA 847 reached the Beirut area, it was very low on fuel. Even so, Beirut control denied the aircraft permission to land. Since this did not please the hijackers, one of them, who was in the cockpit at the time, pulled the pin of a hand grenade and threatened to blow up the airliner. Captain Testrake decided he had no choice but to bluff his way in.
That worked, and they were able to set down safely and park. They then waited for refueling. The terrorists still intended to fly to Algeria.
As they touched down, the cockpit crew couldn't help but notice the wreckage of a Jordanian airliner blown up two days earlier by the PLO.
Because the Lebanese were far from eager to get involved in the ongoing crisis, they ignored the request for fuel. That meant that the terrorists were again displeased. To make clear their determination, they tightly bound the hands of Navy diver Robert Stethem with a bungee cord, dragged him to the front of the airplane, beat him savagely enough to break all his ribs, then dumped him moaning and bleeding in a seat near the front of the plane.
When the captain radioed the tower, "They are beating the passengers and threatening to kill them!" the Lebanese authorities were persuaded to send a refueling truck to TWA 847.
Because it was a long flight to Algeria, Testrake had to take on all the fuel the plane could hold, making the plane some 15,000 pounds overweight with a full load of passengers — and unsafe for takeoff. In view of that, the hijackers agreed to let seventeen women and two children go (they left by sliding down the emergency escape chutes). Releasing the passengers not only made the plane safer, it reduced the number of people that the hijackers had to control — and provided access to a source of intelligence about what was happening on the plane.
Predictably, considering the delay and indecision that marked the whole sequence of events, it was several hours before the released passengers could be flown to Cyprus, a hundred miles away, where they could be interviewed in detail by American officials.
Meanwhile, word of the hijacking did not reach Washington officials until about 4:00 A.M., Washington time. JSOTF learned of it shortly thereafter, from news reports picked up by its Reuters and BBC monitors. Crisis-management teams started gathering at the Federal Aviation Administration, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House Situation Room, but none of them had more than sketchy details.
At 6:30 Friday morning, Washington time, TWA 847 cleared the runway in Beirut and headed for Algeria, 1,800 miles away.
By that time the gears in Washington had started to grind into motion. The Pentagon had been ready to respond immediately — it operates twenty-four hours a day — but no one with sufficient rank to make a decision had been available at the White House or State Department. The Administration's terrorist incident working group did not meet until approximately 10:00 that morning.
Meanwhile, at Fort Bragg, JSOTF had already alerted its own forces in anticipation that Americans could be on board the hijacked aircraft, as well as the Military Airlift Command, since lift assets would be needed soon, and the J-3 (Operations) officer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, requesting Pentagon authority for immediate deployment. The forces that would take part in the operation would come primarily from Army Special Forces and an Army special operations helicopter unit. They expected to fly first to Sigonella, a NATO base on Sicily operated jointly by the United States and Italy, and therefore strategically located at the midpoint of the Mediterranean.
Since only two lightly armed terrorists were in charge of the airplane, excellent conditions existed for a takedown — if, as seemed to be the case, Algeria was in fact TWA 847's destination, and if it was possible to persuade the Algerians to hold the plane on the ground.
With this scenario in mind, JSOTF requested USEUCOM (European Command) to authorize two C-13 °Combat Talon aircraft, capable of low-level flight and landing in total darkness to be prepared to deploy from Mildenhall, England, to Sigonella. JSOTF had additionally requested another TWA Boeing 727, identical to the hijacked aircraft, to join the Task Force at Sigonella.
Since JSOTF maintained a detailed database covering every airfield in those regions of the world where terrorist incidents were likely to take place, it was aware of all the characteristics of the Algerian airfield to which the hijacked plane would most likely head. Thus JSOTF had two takedown options: Combat Talon aircraft carrying the rescue force could land blacked out at night. Or the second TWA 727 could be used as a Trojan horse.
All the while, valuable time was being wasted. The Force had been ready to go soon after learning of the hijacking but, as was the case in the past and as would be the case later that year in October, neither airlift nor crews qualified to fly these missions were available. Rounding them up consumed valuable time… time the terrorists used most efficiently to stay ahead of JSOTF's reaction time.
When the Administration's terrorist incident working group finally met on Friday morning, they recommended that the Task Force be dispatched immediately.
If airlift had been readily available, Stiner and his forces (including the Combat Talons from England and the TWA 727) could have been arriving at Sigonella at about the time TWA 847 was approaching Algeria. However, the Pentagon was reluctant to launch the Task Force until TWA 847 settled down wherever it was going.
By midday Algerian time, during (as it happened) the Muslim holy season of Ramadan, TWA 847 was approaching Algeria.
While en route there, Castro made a broadcast in Arabic over the plane's radio, detailing the terrorists' demands: He wanted more than seven hundred Shiites released from prison in Israel, seventeen other Shiites freed from a prison in Kuwait, two other Shiites released from Spain, and two others from Cyprus. Additionally, he wanted Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon, the United States to admit responsibility for a recent car bombing in Beirut, and the world to condemn America for its support of Israel.
These demands were, of course, impossible to meet.
As the aircraft was approaching the airfield in Algeria, the State Department passed on to Ambassador Michael Newlin a directive from President Reagan: He was to contact Algerian president Chadli Benjedid and make two requests: first, to make an exception to Algeria's policy that hijacked aircraft not be allowed to land; and second, to keep the plane on the ground and not permit it to take off again after landing.
Looking back over the entire TWA 847 affair, it is possible to see that the United States had only one real opportunity to rescue the hostages without high risk of bloodshed. It was during that first stopover in Algeria. That opportunity was blown, however.
Instead of doing everything in his power to make direct contact with President Benjedid, as he'd been instructed, Michael Newlin settled for subordinates, and then he allowed the Algerian subordinates to pretty much call the shots.