Capturing The Achille Lauro Hijackers - The Interception Of EgyptAir 2843 скачать в хорошем качестве

Capturing The Achille Lauro Hijackers - The Interception Of EgyptAir 2843

In the dead of night on the 10th of October 1985, one of the most remarkable intercepts of the Cold War took place over the Mediterranean. As well as capturing a murderer and his three accomplices, it demonstrated the options that carrier strike groups gave the US and NATO. Notes & Inconsistencies The Achille Lauro hijacking and the carrier aviation actions taken in this story remain somewhat controversial and somewhat clouded. As far as I’m aware no conclusive report from the Navy on the tactical aspects has been published. So there are inconsistencies in different accounts. One of the main immediate faults even in the best accounts is propagation of the idea that the terrorists had not intended to hijack Achille Lauro at all. This was refuted in the Italian court case against the hijackers. Their reasoning was that 1/ The hijackers offered contradictory accounts of the plan to attack Ashdod 2/ The stewards aboard the Achille Lauro all denied Abbas's story about walking in on the hijackers cleaning weapons 3/ The hijackers never shared any details about a planned attack on Ashdod until after the hijacking 4/ The timing of the hijacking was too convenient, given that the vast majority of passengers had disembarked in Egypt that morning, leaving a much smaller crowd to control. The story of an intended attack on Ashdod was judged to be a retroactive cover story that Abbas came up with once it was clear that the hijacking was unsuccessful. In terms of the carrier action, there are various views on the sequence of launches from Saratoga. This doesn’t really matter in the overall narrative but is the kind of thing that bothers me. I’ve gone with the account that is most consistently given in interviews with Navy personnel. The CIA report says four Tomcats, a Hawkeye and a Prowler went first, but doesn’t mention other aircraft other than KA-6D tankers being put on standby. An interesting ACIG article from 2003, copied on occasion by the usual suspects goes with a total of 7 and three Hawkeyes. An odd number of Tomcats might seem strange but I think 6 launches and five active aircraft is the right number. One Tomcat aborted after takeoff with a radar failure. That has also led to disagreements about how many Tomcats participated in the escort of the 737 to Sigonella. 2, 3 and 5 also come up. I’ve gone with the consensus of 4. Furthermore, there are some sources that have the EA-6B jamming the 737’s radios so that it couldn’t communicate with Cairo. That may well be true, although it conflicts with the official story that the pilot was able to communicate with various potential landing spots. The El Al pilot also reported hearing the EgyptAir pilot communicating with Athens. Perhaps some frequencies were jammed and not others. In terms of sources, I drew the main thread of the narrative from "The Achille Lauro Hijacking: Lessons In The Politics And Prejudices Of Terrorism" by Michael K Bohm Captain Massey has an interesting presentation of his experiences of the incident, that is worth a watch:    • Achille Lauro Hijacking / Egypt Air 737 - ...