'How many glow plugs are in an engine?' I asked the mechanic (we always carried a mechanic on special operations missions as part of the crew). 'And how many does it take to start it?'
'There are six per engine,' I recall him saying, 'but it only takes one good one to start an engine.'
'So why can't we take one or two from a good engine and put them in the failed engine to get it going?' I asked.
'We can give it a try,' he said.
Four or five of us then deplaned to give the mechanic a hand removing and replacing the engine cowlings, while the mechanic transferred the 'glow plugs.' This took about thirty minutes.
Now the engine was ready to go. However, because the earlier attempts to start it had 'loaded it up' with fuel, the mechanic was concerned about chances of a fire. 'Now let's get everybody off the plane,' he announced, 'and get ready for the fireball if it starts.' Everybody quickly deplaned, and the mechanic gave the pilot the signal. The three good engines were started, and then the failed engine was given a try. Nothing happened for maybe thirty seconds, and then some smoke came, and then all of a sudden a flame jetted out as far as the tail of the airplane — or at least that was how it seemed. The pilot smiled and gave a thumbs-up to all of us outside, then we quickly reboarded the aircraft.
After launch, we remained in radio contact with the E-2C, so as not to interfere with the intercept operation. Flying time from Cyprus to Sigonella was about three or four hours.
Back in the United States, at 4:37 P.M., Washington time, President Reagan directed Defense Secretary Weinberger to intercept the plane and its hijackers.
'National Command Authority' is two men, the President and the Secretary of Defense, who is second to the President in control of the armed forces. This means command authority passes through the Defense Secretary on the way down to, say, the 6th Fleet
Weinberger called the Pentagon and gave the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Crowe, the okay to proceed.
Meanwhile, the E-2C watched for the Egypt Air 737. When they picked out likely contacts flying the route from Cairo to Tunis, F-14s then had to check the tail numbers. Around midnight, they began checking out possible radar contacts.
The first two blacked-out aircraft they examined turned out American C- 141 transport planes — our team on the way to Sigonella.
The F-14s intercepted their target two tries later — tail number 2843. A pair of F-14s with lights out now flew, one on each of the commercial aircraft's wingtips. The crew and passengers of the Egypt Air plane were in total ignorance that they'd been bracketed by U.S. fighters.
The formation proceeded westward. No problem. That was where the Americans wanted them to go — for the time being.
Meanwhile, the State Department had asked the Tunisian government to deny the Egyptians permission to land, and the Tunisians had agreed. When the Egyptians tried Athens, they again got a negative response. Their only recourse was to return to Cairo, and Cairo control had to comply with their request.
At this point, the Egyptian pilots got a surprise: '2843, this is Tigertail 603. Over,' the E-2C Hawkeye radioed. The Egyptians did not reply.
The Hawkeye repeated: '2843. Tigertail 603.' It took four tries before the Egyptians got nerve enough to acknowledge.
'Tigertail 603. Egypt Air 2843. Go ahead.'
'Egypt Air 2843. Tigertail 603. Be advised you're being escorted by two F-14s. You are to land immediately… immediately… at Sigonella, Sicily Over.'
'Roger. this is Tigertail 603. I advise you are directed to land immediately, proceed immediately to Sigonella, Sicily. You are being escorted by two interceptor aircraft. Vector 280 for Sigonella, Sicily Over.'
'Repeat again,' the Egyptian requested.
The E-2C complied: 'You are to turn immediately to 280. Head 280 immediately.'
The Egyptian had no choice. 'Turning right, heading 280.'
The F-14s had by then switched on their running lights, and the Egyptian had realized that they were only a few feet from each of his wingtips. 'I'm saying you are too close. I'm following your orders. Don't be too close. Please.'
'Okay, we'll move away a little bit,' the Hawkeye answered (he was actually a hundred miles off). And the F-14s edged away a little. It was time for a change anyway, since the F-14s were too short-ranged to escort the 737 all the way to Sigonella. Soon, these E-14s were replaced by three others, who were to take the Egyptian airliner to Sicily.
AT Sigonella, Bill Spearman was in his office in gym shorts. He'd been playing racquetball when he got word that I needed to talk to him.
'Bill, it's coming,' I told him. 'You arc the only one that's going to know about it, and you're going to make it happen. We are coming to your location with an Egyptian 737 with the terrorists aboard, followed immediately by my two C-141 s. Get hold of my people that I left there and tell them that I want the 737 to clear the runway immediately, for I will be landing blacked out seconds behind it. Tell them to block and hold that 737 and don't let anybody off or on. When I get there I'll take charge. Also, Bill, I want you to make sure that we are granted permission to land and that the Italians don't try to block us.'
Spearman then went to brief the Italian base commander, Colonel Annicchiarici. As it happened, this was Annicchiarici's last day on the job. The next day, a lot of Italian brass would be on hand for his change-of-command ceremony, including an army three-star. Annicchiarici was not especially pleased at the going-away present that we had dropped on his lap; but it thankfully didn't take him long to realize that his friend Bill Spearman had been as much in the dark about it as he was.
'Beel, if you were in uniform, I would have known that you knew about this all along,' Annicchiarici told him when he learned about the Egypt Air plane, 'but since you are in your shorts, I believe that you didn't know anything about it either.'
At about midnight, Italian Prime Minister Craxi received a telephone call from the White House, informing him, in his words 'that U.S. military aircraft had intercepted an Egyptian civil aircraft which the U.S. government believed with a reasonable degree of certainty to be carrying the four Palestinians responsible for the hijacking of the Achille
And in fact, Craxi was not pleased to learn that he was on the hook. He wanted the whole terrorist situation as far from Italy as possible.
Craxi didn't know what to do. So he decided to punt. The Egypt Air 737 would be allowed to land at Sigonella base.
Shortly after midnight, my pilot informed me that if things continued to go as planned, we'd be on the ground at Sigonella in about an hour.
I called the Pentagon to give an update and to verify that my mission was to take the terrorists off the plane, place them in chains, and fly them back to the United States to stand trial. (I never could figure out the 'bring them back in chains' part. In the first place, I didn't have any chains except for 'cargo tie-down chains' on the C-141, and I had already decided that I would put the terrorists on the plane with Captain 'Bob' and his two SEAL platoons. 1 couldn't think of anything more secure than that.)
By this time the Chairman and the service chiefs had assembled in a small conference room in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon and were listening to my radio traffic.
Vice Admiral Moreau answered my call.
'We should be on the ground at Sigonella in about an hour,' I told him. 'The SEAL detachment that I left
