979 when<br >Pl OlOgUe"<br >Palma， Mogadishu， Stammheim<br >It was on Thursday 13 October 1977.<br > The two men wore lightweight slacks， open-necked shirts and<br >leather boots， brown with Cuban heels. The two women wore<br >casual jackets and slacks. They looked and behaved much the<br >same as the other people in the departure lounge， standing in a<br >little group， exchanging few words， waiting for Flight 181 to be<br >announced. If they showed any tension， it passed unnoticed.<br > The Spanish authorities didn t<br >seriously. There was no electronic<br >take security at Palma airport<br >detector equipment， no manual<br >searches were made， no women police officers were even available<br >to carry out body checks on women passengers.<br > Some time past midday the eighty-seven passengers filed out<br >to the Boeing 737. It was hot from standing in the sun. Captain<br >Jfirgen Schumann received TO clearance from Palma Control<br >Tower and at 12.55 local time the Lufthansa flight was airborne.<br >Flying time to Frankfurt was estimated at two hours fifteen<br >minutes. Lunch would be served on board.<br > As the aircraft overflew the island of Elba， the two men took<br >pistols from their leather boots. The women produced grenades，<br >removing the priming pins. The men broke through to the flight<br >deck and took command of LH181. The time was logged: 13.33.<br > That was the beginning.<br > Most commercial aircraft， the Lufthansa jet included， carry a<br >hijack alarm， a switch that automatically broadcasts a distress<br >signal through the transponder to air traffic controllers. Switching<br >this on can easily be covered in the dozens of operations necessary<br >to flying the machine， but Captain Schumann made no use of it.<br >He knew from the reading of past hijacks that the net result was<br >that airports blocked their runways. Nobody wants a hijacked<br >pla~e on their hands.<br > ATC Nice were the first to note something amiss when the<br >Lufthansa jet changed course from its filed flight plan. It turned<br >7<br >nzj put<br >t~!q V，，<br >， ~ooq aq~<br >u~wnq ~<br >:)n~gw~ls~s<br >~ds ~^isu~l<br >w pu~ sanss!<br > nda8 "~，~aeld<br >j~ld ue!doafl<br >ld~ sntus~J~t，，<br ><br >