F OCUS - American Foreign Service Association

hours, we made a forced landing in
Damascus, where the hijackers said
they would blow up the aircraft 60
seconds after landing.
There were some 175 passengers
on board, about half of whom were
Americans, I would guess. But the
even bigger concern was that many of
them were Jewish, something I didn’t
really concentrate on until right
before our forced landing. Remember,
this was just two years after the
Six Days War, and Syria and Israel
were still at war; there was only an
armistice. And we had no diplomatic
relations with Syria, no embassy on
the ground.
As we approached the ground, I
stationed myself at the rear door to
help get people off the plane. Though
it was not exactly a crash, the pilot had
never seen the airport before so it was
a pretty rough landing. We were all in
our stocking feet because the cabin
crew had collected all our shoes as
part of the emergency procedure. (If
you leave your shoes on, as soon as
you hit the ground they go shooting
forward at the speed of the plane,
along with pencils and everything
else, becoming projectiles.)
When the back door of the plane
opened, it turned out we were in the
middle of a prickly-pear field! People
were falling down and screaming
while frantically moving away from
the plane, so it was a real mess. When
most passengers were safely across
the field, I noticed three passengers
still under the port wing. One woman
was in really bad shape, with compound
fractures to her left leg.
There was an American G.I. among
the passengers and the two of us
crossed the field together to carry the
wounded to safety. It was very frightening,
as the clock was ticking — well
past the 60 seconds. The plane could
have blown up any moment. We were
very lucky. Just as the five of us
regained the trench where the rest of
the group was huddled, the front half
of the plane exploded.
FSJ: So you saved a lot of lives
that day.
TDB: No question about it. We
could either have been blown to
pieces or incinerated in the fireball. It
was a close-run thing.
But there was still a big problem.
An American aircraft with many
Jewish passengers had landed in
Damascus. To protect the innocent, I
needed to establish some authority
and then play for time. So I walked
up to the fellow who seemed to be in
charge, identified myself and showed
him my U.S. diplomatic passport. I
informed him that everyone on that
plane was under the protection of the
United States because the hijacked
JULY-AUGUST 2008/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 19