Failed Security

By Janice Castro

Liquid explosives in the sky

Air France Flight 747 from Frankfurt had just begun its descent toward Paris in the late-afternoon sun last Tuesday when three men, brandishing knives and Molotov cocktails, burst into the cockpit and demanded to be taken to Iran. Thus began for their 61 hostages a harrowing 46-hour journey of nearly 3,000 miles, with stops in Geneva, Beirut, Cyprus and, finally, Tehran. There the hijackers, by now mysteriously armed with revolvers and automatic pistols, declared that starting Thursday morning they would kill one French passenger every hour until the French government agreed to release five Islamic fanatics in prison since 1980 for the attempted assassination of former Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar in a Paris suburb.

A top-level French crisis team decided it would not release the prisoners. Iran, prompted by pleas from West Germany, Britain and other countries, agreed to negotiate for the release of the hostages. The Iranians acted reluctantly, perhaps because of their anger over extensive French arms sales to Iraq. By Thursday morning, all 14 of the women and children on board were released. That afternoon the remaining hostages were herded onto the runway. The hijackers blew up the plane's cockpit, then surrendered. French Charge d'Affaires Jean Perrin called the explosion "a little matter of honor."

Only a few days earlier, a similar drama had been enacted in the Caribbean skies. A Venezuelan Aeropostal airliner, en route from Caracas to Curac,ao with 87 passengers and crew aboard, was hijacked by self-proclaimed Haitian Rebel Hilertaut Dominique and his Dominican accomplice Felix Segundo Castillo. Armed with gasoline and pistols, the two forced the pilot to fly the plane first to Trinidad, then to Aruba, and finally to Curac,ao.

According to one hostage, the hijackers acted "like mental cases," demanding at different times a helicopter, millions of dollars, automatic weapons and flight plans for Europe and the Middle East. Following the plane to Curac,ao was a team of commandos from Venezuela. During the 17 hours the plane sat on the runway, while passengers sweltered inside, a team of anti-hijack specialists from the U.S. arrived. In the dark hours of Tuesday morning, a commando crept under the plane and deflated one of its tires; the other three tires were then shot out, immobilizing the aircraft.

That afternoon Dominique splashed gasoline on passengers and then ignited a newspaper. The terrified hostages forced open a door and tumbled out of the plane. At that moment the Venezuelan commandos stormed the cabin. The two hijackers died in the ensuing shootout.

Travelers familiar with the loose safety arrangements at Caracas' Simon Bolivar Airport were not surprised that the two men were able to board the Aeropostal flight carrying pistols. However, the Air France hijackers eluded security checks at Frankfurt International Airport, which boasts some of the toughest safeguards in the world. No airport X-ray machine or magnetic scanner can detect the liquid explosives the men carried. Moreover, some hostages believe the guns were in a mysterious bag delivered to the hijackers by Iranians at the Tehran airport.

A far grislier terrorist act occurred on Thursday when a bomb, concealed in a suitcase, exploded at Meenambakham International Airport in Madras, India, killing at least 29 people and destroying the customs area. Madras airport authorities, accustomed to frequent bomb hoaxes, had tragically ignored three telephoned warnings. --By Janice Castro. Reported by Bernard Diederich/Miami and Thomas A. Sancton/Paris

With reporting by Bernard Diederich, Thomas A. Sancton