New Zealand Listener 03.14.2020

32 LISTENER MARCH 14 2020

start work. What followed is the first mys-

tery. He said he did not wish to convene the

group. Startled, I said that this would make

it impossible to co-ordinate the response to

the hijacking. “You’ll manage it,” he said

and turned to something else.

FOG OF WAR AND HIJACKING

What followed was the sort of chaos that

only he could create. With no time to do

anything else, the hijacking had to be man-

aged from the PM’s outer office where all

three phones began ringing simultaneously.

I jumped from one to the other trying to

discover what was happening in Nadi while

attempting to keep my colleagues informed.

When Police Minister Ann Hercus passed by

and offered to help, she picked up one of the

ringing phones and found herself talking to

her own commissioner. I quickly gave up

co-ordination and concentrated on talking

to Nadi.

By a happy chance, we had good com-

munications with both the airport and

the plane itself. The control tower, now

manned by a competent policeman, Inspec-

tor Govind Raja, could talk to the cockpit

through a loudspeaker heard by everyone

on the flight deck, including the hijacker.

The pilot could also talk more privately

through a single-sideband radio with the air-

line in Auckland and through them with us.

The fog of war is matched by the fog of

hijacking – the painful first hour or so when

you are groping to discover who and how

many the hijackers are, what they want,

what support they have and how credible

their demands are. The hijacker appeared

in the cockpit at the end of refuelling, with

four sticks of dynamite around his waist

while smoking a cigarette so as to be able

to ignite the fuses if necessary. He demanded

to be flown to Libya.

The plane had begun boarding, but a

resourceful aircrew member, noticing that

something was wrong, had got the passen-

gers away. This was a relief. The hijacker

controlled those on the flight deck, but oth-

erwise it was only an empty plane, which

at least reduced the risk if our negotiations

failed.

The final word lay with the pilot whose

own life was at risk, but I urged the critical

importance of keeping talking and avoiding

a take-off. In the air with a full load of fuel,

the plane could go anywhere and we would

lose what tenuous control we had of the

situation. So I suggested undertakings and

promises for the pilot to pass on, and the

discussions – including rambling sermons

from the hijacker about the iniquities of

Australia and the US – went on for an hour.

By then, we were getting a grip on the

situation. There was only one hijacker,

Ahmjed Ali, though there was a brother

mournfully prowling the airport. We made

an important psychological breakthrough

when he began to change his demands,

asking that letters be passed to several lead-

ers, including Lange, and that the plane fly

to Auckland instead of Libya. And with only

one hijacker, time would in due course solve

the problem, unless we made a fatal misstep.

Then we nearly did. Inspector Raja came

on the air to say that he had the hijacker’s

parents in the tower. Would it help to put

them on the cockpit radio? I thought it an

excellent idea and said go ahead. It was

nearly a disaster. Mum came on the air, not

to urge her son to give up but to say, “Oh

son, you have brought eternal shame on

us; nothing can wipe out the stain of your

deed.” The hijacker became agitated and his

cigarette was straying towards the fuses. The

pilot’s desperate voice came on the private

radio – “Get her off” – and Mum’s broadcast

came to an abrupt end.

After that, we made some progress,

with the hijacker seemingly dropping his

demand to take off at all. It began to look as

if patience and further talking would bring

things to a peaceable end.

MYSTERY NO 2

Then Lange revealed his second mystery.

When I ducked into his room to report that

the situation was coming under control, he

instructed me to go to Nadi. Startled once

again, I demurred, pointing out the need

for someone in Wellington to co-ordinate

tactics with Air New Zealand, that Raja was

handling the negotiations very well in Nadi

and there was no sense in my turning up as

a redundant negotiator. After he repeated his

request twice, I had to comply, still baffled

about its purpose, and went home to get

some clothes and catch the flight the airline

had arranged.

As I left his room, I caught the tail end

of a conversation he was having with his

advisers John Henderson, the head of his

office, and Tim Francis, the deputy secretary

of Foreign Affairs, about sending a planeload

of troops to Nadi. My hair stood on end at

TR the effect this could have on the delicate

AC

E^ H

O
DG

SO

N/

N
Z^ L

IS
TE

NE

R

POLITICS

Would it help to put

the hijacker’s parents

on the cockpit radio? I

thought it an excellent

idea and said go ahead.

It was nearly a disaster.

(^12)