As he later reported, most of his own staff was unavailable (having already taken off to Mediterranean beaches for the weekend), and he found few members of the Algerian government who would take his calls. Newlin did manage to get hold of Benjedid's chief of staff, however, and forty-five minutes later, he called back to say that TWA 847 would be permitted to land "on humanitarian grounds."
By this time, TWA 847 was already requesting permission to land, and had less than thirty minutes of fuel remaining.
After landing, the terrorists decided to return to Beirut to pick up reinforcements, causing another problem with refueling, which meant that another American serviceman, Army Reservist Kurt Karlson, was beaten. Again, though, that facilitated matters (though the flight attendant, Uli Derickson, had to pay for the fuel with her Shell credit card, since TWA didn't have landing facilities in Algeria; she was later billed for six thousand gallons of jet fuel at a dollar a gallon). On the other hand, the terrorists released another twenty-one passengers — eighteen of them American.
Once the refueling was completed, TWA 847 took off again and headed back toward Beirut. The Algerian government made no move to hold the plane on the ground.
Meanwhile, an Air Force C-141 was launching from Andrews AFB just outside Washington, D.C., with the twenty-man Emergency Support Team (EST), headed by a senior State Department official, Ambassador David Long. Joining him were a senior CIA official (formerly a senior station chief), representatives from the Defense Intelligence Agency, communications and technical personnel, selected members of the White House National Security Staff, and a couple of senior Special Forces officers who would act in an advisory and coordination role. The EST's mission was to precede the Task Force, assist the Ambassador and his staff, and interface with JSOTF, the State Department, and National Intelligence Agencies. After some indecision about the best place to go, the team decided to land at Sigonella.
It was after 2:00 in the morning when TWA 847 began its approach for its second landing in Beirut.
The runway marker lights were out. The airport was blacked out. Once again the Beirut control tower refused permission to land, and once again Captain Testrake was desperate: "I have no more than twenty minutes of fuel left," he explained to the tower. "I'm coming in even if it means landing next to the runway."
When Testrake broke out of the clouds 500 feet above the airport, he could see vehicles blocking the runway. He radioed to the tower: "We're in deadly danger. I implore you to open your airport and let us land."
The controller replied, "Unfortunately, my superiors do not care about your problems."
"If we try to land, we'll crash," Testrake told the hijackers.
"Good," one answered. "That will save us the trouble of blowing it up."
"Prepare the passengers for a crash landing," Testrake told Uli Derickson. He then made an announcement to the passengers: "We are low on fuel and have to land. We have fuel for only one approach. We're going in. Prepare for a crash landing. If they do not remove the obstacles, we will land on the ground beside the runway. Otherwise, we will have to land in the water."
But with three miles to go, the runway lights flashed on, the vehicles were removed, and the tower told Testrake he was clear to land.
Another gut-cruncher…. These were getting to be a habit.
Once the aircraft was on the ground, the hijackers ordered Testrake to stop in the middle of the runway, far from any buildings. Castro and Said then began talking to the tower in Arabic, their voices increasingly angry. They were demanding that reinforcements be allowed to board the plane, and the Lebanese authorities were resisting their demands.
"I don't want to talk to you," one of them screamed at the controller. "I only talk to the Amal." Amal was an armed Shiite faction in Beirut, headed by a lawyer named Nhabbi Barri, with ties to Syrian president Hafez Assad. Amal was somewhat more moderate than Hezbollah. As later became apparent, Assad was working behind the scenes with Amal and Hezbollah's Iranian masters to resolve the situation, but on terms that would be to his political advantage.
"You arc trying to gain time," the terrorist continued. "You don't believe me. We'll kill this Marine." He meant Robert Stethem, the Navy diver who had been beaten during the first landing in Beirut.
Castro then dragged Stethem, screaming in agony, to the open door of the aircraft, placed a pistol to the back of his head, and fired. Then he dumped his body onto the tarmac.
"He has just killed a passenger," the pilot reported.
As he spoke, Castro snatched the microphone and said, "You see. You now believe. There will be another in five minutes."
At this point, Castro ordered Testrake to taxi to the refueling points.
The terrorists never forgot that time was precious. The longer they stayed in one place, the greater the window for a takedown attempt. Thus they bounced back and forth from one place to the other.
"As I began moving down the runway," Testrake later remembered, "I turned the wheel sharply to avoid running over the young serviceman's body."
As all this was going on, everyone on the plane had fallen silent — horrified at the violence — until one of the terrorists started singing a song. "It was a song of celebration," Uli Derickson recalled.
Meanwhile, the terrorists chose their next victim: Clinton Suggs, another Navy diver.
"The hijacker came back where 1 was," Suggs recalled, "and he was kicking me and hitting me and calling me American pig. I thought I was dead. I prayed and asked the Lord to receive me in his arms."
All of a sudden, the back door of the plane opened and ten or twelve heavily armed militiamen carrying automatic weapons rushed onto the plane, screaming and shouting. The terrorists had succeeded in getting their reinforcements… and multiplying the difficulty of a takedown.
One of the twelve, who identified himself as Gihad and spoke fluent English, was in fact one of Lebanon's leading terrorists, Imad Mugniyah. Mugniyah had once been a member of Amal, but at this time he was with Hezbollah — their "enforcer." Muginayah now took charge of the operation.
After the aircraft was refueled, six Americans, including Kurt Karlson, Clinton Suggs, and three other Navy divers, were ordered into seats in the last two rows of the plane. Shortly after that, the six were rushed down the back steps of the plane into a waiting enclosed truck. A few moments later, a second group of five passengers — another Navy diver and four of the seven with Jewish-sounding names — were also taken off the plane, loaded into another truck, and whisked away.
Flight 847 then took off again, headed for Algeria. This second Algerian episode would last until Sunday.
It was now daybreak Saturday.
Robert Stethem's body had already been dumped on the tarmac in Beirut before Carl Stiner was given authority to launch with his JSOTF. Six to eight more hours of flying time were required before they could be in position to resolve the situation.
While Stiner was en route, the State Department had directed Ambassador Newlin to ask the Algerians for permission to bring in Long's EST, who by then had reached Sigonella.
According to Newlin, however, the Algerians refused. They could not permit a rescue mission, and that's what the EST, with its Air Force C-141, seemed to be.
Unable to bring in his aircraft or his entire team, Long did the best he could. He pared his numbers down by a third and flew this smaller group by commercial air to Algiers by way of Marseilles.
Meanwhile, JSOTF and the rest of the support team had arrived at Sigonella, having planned the rescue operation en route. Soon after landing they linked up with the TWA 727 and the two Combat Talon aircraft from England. All the pieces were now in place for a rescue operation, and sufficient darkness remained to reach Algeria and conduct the operation before daylight. However, a rescue operation would be a different ball game now. Instead of the pair of lightly armed terrorists that had been on board the first time the plane landed in Algeria, there were now fourteen heavily armed Hezbollah militiamen on the plane, some armed with machine guns.