{"id":23219862,"date":"2026-09-18T12:01:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T10:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/?p=23219862"},"modified":"2026-09-18T12:01:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T10:01:12","slug":"el-al-flight-219-hijacking-1970-bar-lev-dive-dawsons-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/el-al-flight-219-hijacking-1970-bar-lev-dive-dawsons-field\/","title":{"rendered":"The El Al Captain Who Dived to Beat a Hijacking"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n<p>The decision that saved El Al Flight 219 was not the dive. It was made on the ground at Schiphol, before anyone boarded, and it nearly cost the captain his career.<\/p>\r\n<p>On 6 September 1970 a Boeing 707 left Amsterdam for New York with 138 passengers and 10 crew. Two of those passengers were armed. Within half an hour the aircraft was the only one of five hijacking attempts that day that did not end with an airliner in the hands of the hijackers, and the reason traces back to a pre-flight argument about where the sky marshal would sit.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/el-al-boeing-707.jpg\" alt=\"An El Al Boeing 707\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">An El Al Boeing 707 in the livery of the period. Flight 219 was 4X-ATB, Amsterdam to New York. Photo: Eduard Marmet, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:18px 20px;margin:26px 0\"><h3 style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-size:20px\">Quick Facts<\/h3><table style=\"width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:15px\"><tr><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee;font-weight:600;width:38%;vertical-align:top\">Flight<\/td><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee\">El Al 219, Tel Aviv to New York via Amsterdam, 6 September 1970<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee;font-weight:600;width:38%;vertical-align:top\">Aircraft<\/td><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee\">Boeing 707, registration 4X-ATB<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee;font-weight:600;width:38%;vertical-align:top\">On board<\/td><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee\">138 passengers, 10 crew<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee;font-weight:600;width:38%;vertical-align:top\">Captain<\/td><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee\">Uri Bar-Lev, 39, former Israeli Air Force pilot<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee;font-weight:600;width:38%;vertical-align:top\">Hijackers<\/td><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee\">Leila Khaled and Patrick Arg&uuml;ello, travelling on Honduran passports<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee;font-weight:600;width:38%;vertical-align:top\">Weapons<\/td><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee\">Pistols and two hand grenades<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee;font-weight:600;width:38%;vertical-align:top\">The manoeuvre<\/td><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee\">A sustained negative-g pushover, descending at about 10,000 feet per minute for roughly two and a half minutes<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee;font-weight:600;width:38%;vertical-align:top\">Casualties<\/td><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee\">Chief steward Shlomo Vider critically wounded and survived; Arg&uuml;ello shot by the sky marshal and died<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee;font-weight:600;width:38%;vertical-align:top\">Diversion<\/td><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee\">London Heathrow, against instructions to return to Israel<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee;font-weight:600;width:38%;vertical-align:top\">Context<\/td><td style=\"padding:8px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee\">One of five hijackings by the PFLP over four days, known as the Dawson&rsquo;s Field hijackings<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The two men who did not board<\/h2>\r\n<p>El Al security at Schiphol flagged four passengers. Two were travelling on consecutive Senegalese passport numbers, which is the sort of detail that ends a journey. They were refused boarding. The other two, a couple on Honduran passports, were questioned and let through.<\/p>\r\n<p>The two refused at the gate simply bought tickets on Pan Am Flight 93 instead and hijacked that aircraft the same day. The couple who were cleared were Leila Khaled, a Palestinian member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who had already hijacked a TWA aircraft the year before, and Patrick Arg&uuml;ello, a Nicaraguan-American.<\/p>\r\n<p>Bar-Lev was not satisfied. He asked for something that was against El Al&rsquo;s own procedure: he wanted the armed sky marshal, a Shin Bet officer named Avihu Kol, seated in the cockpit with him rather than in the cabin. He got his way. Remember that, because it is the hinge of the entire story.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Twenty-nine thousand feet<\/h2>\r\n<p>About half an hour after take-off, climbing through roughly 29,000 feet, the pair moved. Arg&uuml;ello went forward, Khaled produced two grenades, and they demanded the flight deck.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #c62828;padding:20px 24px;margin:26px 0\"><p style=\"font-size:19px;line-height:1.6;font-style:italic;margin:0 0 10px;color:#0d1117\">&ldquo;I had my two hand grenades and I showed everybody I was taking the pins out with my teeth.&rdquo;<\/p><p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#555;margin:0\"><strong>Leila Khaled<\/strong>, describing her own actions aboard Flight 219<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Shlomo Vider, the chief steward, charged them and was shot several times. He would spend the rest of the flight bleeding on the cabin floor.<\/p>\r\n<p>Bar-Lev did not open the door. He did something that reads as desperation and was in fact arithmetic. He had taught aerodynamics; he knew what a sustained pushover does to anything not strapped down.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 24px;margin:26px 0\"><p style=\"font-size:19px;line-height:1.6;font-style:italic;margin:0 0 10px;color:#0d1117\">&ldquo;When you put the plane into negative, it&rsquo;s like being in a falling elevator.&rdquo;<\/p><p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#555;margin:0\"><strong>Uri Bar-Lev<\/strong>, captain of El Al Flight 219<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>He pushed the nose down and held it. The passengers were belted in and stayed in their seats. Everything else in the cabin, including two people standing up with weapons in their hands, went to the ceiling and then to the floor. Khaled lost her footing, and by some accounts consciousness. The grenades went with her; one was later found not to have detonated.<\/p>\r\n<p>He held the descent at around 10,000 feet per minute for about two and a half minutes. That is not a stunt dive and it was not random. Losing altitude also reduced what an explosion would do to a pressurised cabin, and it put the aircraft somewhere a depressurisation would be survivable.<\/p>\r\n<p>And because the sky marshal was in the cockpit rather than the cabin, there was an armed man behind the one door the hijackers could not get through, in the one position from which he could come out behind them. Kol came out and shot Arg&uuml;ello. Passengers and crew held Khaled down.<\/p>\r\n<p>The whole thing took a few minutes.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The second decision<\/h2>\r\n<p>The emergency was not over, because Vider was dying on the floor.<\/p>\r\n<p>Israeli command ordered Bar-Lev to bring the aircraft home to Tel Aviv. He worked out that Vider would not survive the flight, and took the aircraft into London Heathrow instead. British medical teams met it. Vider went to hospital and lived. Arg&uuml;ello died on the way to the same hospital. Khaled was arrested by British police.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pmz7QybyyDY\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">What happened to the captain<\/h2>\r\n<p>Here is the part that the viral retellings leave out, and it is the most interesting thing about the story.<\/p>\r\n<p>Bar-Lev was initially treated as a hero and then faced institutional consequences for two things: diverting to London instead of Israel, and putting the sky marshal in the cockpit in breach of procedure. The head of Shin Bet pushed for his dismissal over the cockpit decision, the same decision without which the hijacking would probably have succeeded.<\/p>\r\n<p>He appealed directly to Prime Minister Golda Meir, who intervened. He kept his job, and was advised to take some leave while it blew over.<\/p>\r\n<p>That is how safety culture actually works, and not only in 1970. A procedure exists because somebody thought hard about the general case. A captain breaks it because he is looking at the specific case. If he is wrong he is reckless, and if he is right he is still in breach, and the organisation has to decide which fact it cares about. El Al decided both at once.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/dawsons-field-hijacked-airliners-jordan-1970.png\" alt=\"Hijacked airliners on the ground at Dawson&rsquo;s Field, Jordan, 1970\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Hijacked airliners at Dawson&rsquo;s Field, a desert strip in Jordan, September 1970. Flight 219 is the aircraft that is not in this photograph. Photo: Jordanian press, public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The four that got through<\/h2>\r\n<p>Flight 219 was one attempt among five, and the only one that failed. Over four days the PFLP took TWA 741, a Boeing 707, and Swissair 100, a DC-8, both to Dawson&rsquo;s Field, a desert strip in Jordan. Pan Am 93, a Boeing 747, was taken by the two men Schiphol had turned away, flown to Cairo and blown up there. On 9 September BOAC 775, a VC10, was added to bring British leverage into the negotiation, because Khaled was in a British cell.<\/p>\r\n<p>Around 310 hostages were moved to Amman and released by 11 September. Fifty-six Jewish hostages and six American men were held back at the airstrip. On 12 September the three aircraft at Dawson&rsquo;s Field were blown up in front of the world&rsquo;s cameras, which is the image most people carry of the whole episode.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/dawsons-field-airliners-destroyed-12-september-1970.png\" alt=\"The hijacked airliners destroyed at Dawson&rsquo;s Field on 12 September 1970\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The aircraft were emptied and then destroyed on 12 September 1970. Photo: Jordanian press, public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The hijackings triggered the crisis that Jordanians call Black September. King Hussein declared martial law on 16 September and moved against the Palestinian factions operating in his country. On 30 September the last hostages were exchanged for Khaled and three PFLP prisoners held in Switzerland. She was flown out of Britain and released.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">What it changed<\/h2>\r\n<p>September 1970 is one of the dates aviation security is measured from. Five aircraft in four days, taken with pistols and grenades carried through airport checks that barely existed, is what turned hijacking from a recurring nuisance into an industry-level problem.<\/p>\r\n<p>What followed over the next few years is the architecture passengers still live inside: universal baggage and passenger screening, hardened flight deck doors as standard rather than as an El Al peculiarity, and international conventions obliging states to prosecute or extradite hijackers rather than treat them as a diplomatic inconvenience. El Al, already the most security-conscious airline in the world in 1970, went further still, and its procedures became the reference point everyone else measured themselves against.<\/p>\r\n<p>Bar-Lev kept flying. Asked about it decades later, he was unsentimental about what it had cost him and what it had not.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #2e7d32;padding:20px 24px;margin:26px 0\"><p style=\"font-size:19px;line-height:1.6;font-style:italic;margin:0 0 10px;color:#0d1117\">&ldquo;I live in the moment.&rdquo;<\/p><p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#555;margin:0\"><strong>Uri Bar-Lev<\/strong>, asked, many years later, how the hijacking had affected him<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>He also read Khaled&rsquo;s memoir, he has said, because he wanted to understand how the person on the other side of that cockpit door had seen it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EvDzeiLZxjE\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A note on the version circulating<\/h2>\r\n<p>This came round on Instagram from the account flight_routexplorer, and the account of events is accurate. Three things are worth adding to it.<\/p>\r\n<p>The dive is usually described as losing about 10,000 feet in a minute. Bar-Lev&rsquo;s own account is a descent rate of roughly 10,000 feet per minute sustained for about two and a half minutes, which is a longer and more deliberate manoeuvre than the shorthand suggests.<\/p>\r\n<p>The decision that mattered most is missing entirely. Putting the sky marshal in the cockpit was a breach of procedure made before departure, and it is the reason there was an armed man in the right place when the moment came.<\/p>\r\n<p>And the ending is missing. Bar-Lev was nearly dismissed for that same decision and had to go to the prime minister to keep his job. A story about a captain who does the right thing and is punished for it is better than a story about a captain who does the right thing, because it is the one that tells you something about how organisations behave.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"margin:24px 0;display:flex;justify-content:center\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/Dc8v6-8HBpY\/embed\/\" style=\"width:100%;max-width:540px;height:1000px;border:0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowtransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>What happened on El Al Flight 219 in 1970?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">On 6 September 1970 two armed hijackers attempted to seize an El Al Boeing 707 flying from Amsterdam to New York with 138 passengers and 10 crew. Captain Uri Bar-Lev refused to open the flight deck and put the aircraft into a sustained negative-g dive, throwing the hijackers off their feet. An armed sky marshal shot one of them and passengers overpowered the other. It was the only one of five hijacking attempts that day and the following days that failed.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why did the dive work?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">A sustained pushover produces negative g, which makes anything not strapped down float and then fall. The passengers were belted into their seats and stayed there. The two hijackers were standing in the aisle with weapons and grenades in their hands, and lost their footing. Bar-Lev described the sensation as being in a falling elevator. Descending also reduced the damage an explosion would do to a pressurised cabin.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How far did the aircraft descend?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">By Bar-Lev&rsquo;s own account the aircraft descended at roughly 10,000 feet per minute and he held it for about two and a half minutes, starting from around 29,000 feet. Shorter retellings often compress this into a single minute, which understates how deliberate and sustained the manoeuvre was.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What was the decision that actually saved the flight?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Before departure, Bar-Lev insisted that the armed sky marshal, a Shin Bet officer named Avihu Kol, sit in the cockpit rather than the cabin. This was against El Al procedure. It meant that when the hijackers moved, there was an armed man behind the locked flight deck door and in position to come out behind them. Without it the dive alone would probably not have been enough.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Was Captain Bar-Lev punished?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">He faced consequences for two decisions: diverting to London Heathrow instead of returning to Israel as ordered, and putting the sky marshal in the cockpit in breach of procedure. The head of Shin Bet sought his dismissal over the latter. Bar-Lev appealed to Prime Minister Golda Meir, who intervened, and he kept his job after taking a period of leave.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why did he divert to London?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Because the chief steward, Shlomo Vider, had been shot several times and was bleeding badly. Bar-Lev judged that Vider would not survive the longer flight to Tel Aviv. British medical teams met the aircraft at Heathrow and Vider survived after emergency treatment.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What were the Dawson&rsquo;s Field hijackings?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">A coordinated PFLP operation between 6 and 9 September 1970 that seized five airliners. TWA 741 and Swissair 100 were flown to Dawson&rsquo;s Field, a desert strip in Jordan; Pan Am 93 was flown to Cairo and destroyed there; BOAC 775 was taken on 9 September. El Al 219 was the attempt that failed. Around 310 hostages were released by 11 September, the three aircraft at the airstrip were blown up on 12 September, and the last hostages were exchanged on 30 September.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What happened to the two hijackers?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Patrick Arg&uuml;ello, a Nicaraguan-American, was shot by the sky marshal and died on the way to hospital in London. Leila Khaled was overpowered, arrested by British police on landing, and released on 30 September 1970 in an exchange for the remaining hostages, together with three PFLP prisoners held in Switzerland.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How did these hijackings change aviation security?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">They turned hijacking from a recurring nuisance into an industry-level problem. The years that followed brought universal passenger and baggage screening, hardened flight deck doors as a standard rather than an El Al peculiarity, and international conventions requiring states to prosecute or extradite hijackers instead of treating them as a diplomatic matter.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What happened on El Al Flight 219 in 1970?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"On 6 September 1970 two armed hijackers attempted to seize an El Al Boeing 707 flying from Amsterdam to New York with 138 passengers and 10 crew. Captain Uri Bar-Lev refused to open the flight deck and put the aircraft into a sustained negative-g dive, throwing the hijackers off their feet. An armed sky marshal shot one of them and passengers overpowered the other. It was the only one of five hijacking attempts that day and the following days that failed.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why did the dive work?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"A sustained pushover produces negative g, which makes anything not strapped down float and then fall. The passengers were belted into their seats and stayed there. The two hijackers were standing in the aisle with weapons and grenades in their hands, and lost their footing. Bar-Lev described the sensation as being in a falling elevator. Descending also reduced the damage an explosion would do to a pressurised cabin.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How far did the aircraft descend?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"By Bar-Lev\u2019s own account the aircraft descended at roughly 10,000 feet per minute and he held it for about two and a half minutes, starting from around 29,000 feet. Shorter retellings often compress this into a single minute, which understates how deliberate and sustained the manoeuvre was.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was the decision that actually saved the flight?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Before departure, Bar-Lev insisted that the armed sky marshal, a Shin Bet officer named Avihu Kol, sit in the cockpit rather than the cabin. This was against El Al procedure. It meant that when the hijackers moved, there was an armed man behind the locked flight deck door and in position to come out behind them. Without it the dive alone would probably not have been enough.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Was Captain Bar-Lev punished?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"He faced consequences for two decisions: diverting to London Heathrow instead of returning to Israel as ordered, and putting the sky marshal in the cockpit in breach of procedure. The head of Shin Bet sought his dismissal over the latter. Bar-Lev appealed to Prime Minister Golda Meir, who intervened, and he kept his job after taking a period of leave.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why did he divert to London?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Because the chief steward, Shlomo Vider, had been shot several times and was bleeding badly. Bar-Lev judged that Vider would not survive the longer flight to Tel Aviv. British medical teams met the aircraft at Heathrow and Vider survived after emergency treatment.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What were the Dawson\u2019s Field hijackings?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"A coordinated PFLP operation between 6 and 9 September 1970 that seized five airliners. TWA 741 and Swissair 100 were flown to Dawson\u2019s Field, a desert strip in Jordan; Pan Am 93 was flown to Cairo and destroyed there; BOAC 775 was taken on 9 September. El Al 219 was the attempt that failed. Around 310 hostages were released by 11 September, the three aircraft at the airstrip were blown up on 12 September, and the last hostages were exchanged on 30 September.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What happened to the two hijackers?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Patrick Arg\u00fcello, a Nicaraguan-American, was shot by the sky marshal and died on the way to hospital in London. Leila Khaled was overpowered, arrested by British police on landing, and released on 30 September 1970 in an exchange for the remaining hostages, together with three PFLP prisoners held in Switzerland.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How did these hijackings change aviation security?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"They turned hijacking from a recurring nuisance into an industry-level problem. The years that followed brought universal passenger and baggage screening, hardened flight deck doors as a standard rather than an El Al peculiarity, and international conventions requiring states to prosecute or extradite hijackers instead of treating them as a diplomatic matter.\"}}]}<\/script><p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#777;font-style:italic;margin-top:28px\">Sources: Uri Bar-Lev interviews in The Forward and J. The Jewish News of Northern California; PBS American Experience, Hijacked; Wikipedia entries for the Dawson&rsquo;s Field hijackings and Uri Bar-Lev; Pan Am Museum Foundation news archive; flight_routexplorer on Instagram; Afterburner reporting<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:18px 22px;margin:28px 0\"><h3 style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-size:19px\">Related Posts<\/h3><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:20px\"><li style=\"margin:6px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/entebbe-raid-1976-rescue-operation-thunderbolt\/\">Entebbe: 4,000 Kilometres to Rescue the Hostages<\/a><\/li><li style=\"margin:6px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/db-cooper-northwest-305-hijacking-1971-unsolved\/\">The Skyjacker Who Jumped Into Thin Air<\/a><\/li><li style=\"margin:6px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/tupolev-tu-104-soviet-first-jet-airliner-safety-record\/\">Tupolev Tu-104: The Jetliner That Kept Killing Its Passengers<\/a><\/li><li style=\"margin:6px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/mayday-pan-pan-squawk-7700-pilot-radio-phraseology\/\">Mayday, Pan-Pan and Squawk 7700: What Pilots Say on the Radio<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The decision that saved El Al Flight 219 was not the dive. It was made on the ground at Schiphol, before anyone boarded, and it nearly cost the captain his career. On 6 September 1970 a Boeing 707 left Amsterdam for New York with 138 passengers and 10 crew. Two of those passengers were armed. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":23219156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23219862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The El Al Captain Who Dived to Beat a Hijacking | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The 1970 El Al hijacking failed because of a dive at 29,000 feet and a rule the captain broke before takeoff. 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