American Experience: HIJACKED [PBS] (2006) 1970 PFLP Dawson's Field Hijackings

On September 6, 1970, members of the militant Palestinian group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, hijacked four commercial airliners in order to draw attention to their cause and gain the release of their comrades being held in Swiss prisons. Three days later they commandeered a fifth plane, and, without killing any of the hostages, spectacularly blew up three of the planes at Dawson's Field in the Jordanian desert. Through interviews with militants who carried out the attack, journalists, crew members, and passengers, this production examines these events, and how and when Middle East militants began to see civilians as legitimate pawns in their struggles for self-determination.

Summary: The contrasts between an event that changed the face of terrorism and an act of terrorism that changed the face of the world are explored in director Ilan Ziv's documentary detailing the September 1970 hijacking of five commercial airliners by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Unlike the hijackers of September, 11, 2001, the PFLP was not a religious extremist group, but a group of secular Marxist Leninists looking to call attention to a plight that they felt was being ignored by the masses. Though in the end three of the airliners were spectacularly blown up by the militant Palestinian organization, none of the nearly 600 passengers taken hostage were actually killed. Now, more than three decades after the tense events that braced a nation, award-winning producer Ziv conducts interviews with the PFLP, the masterminds behind the attacks, as well as journalists who covered the events, and passengers and crew members of the flights to offer a compelling snapshot of a time in history when innocent civilians became unwilling pawns in the global game of terror. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi