“He has pulled a hand-grenade pin and is ready to blow up the aircraft if he has to. We must land at Beirut. No alternative.” These are the frantic words of pilot John L. Testrake to the control tower at the Beirut International Airport on 14 June 1985 during the hijacking of TWA flight 847 (Mickolus, Sandler, and Murdock, 1989, vol. 2, p. 219). Testrake's plea came after Lebanese officials had blocked the runway with fire trucks to keep the Boeing 727–200, with less than fifteen minutes of fuel remaining, from landing. Flight 847 was hijacked en route from Athens to Rome with 145 passengers (including the two Lebanese hijackers) and 8 crew members. The hijackers, armed with a chrome-plated pistol and two hand grenades, stormed the cockpit and took over the plane ten minutes after takeoff; thus began a hijacking that would last until 30 June as the plane flew back and forth between Algiers and Beirut. In total, the plane made three landings in Beirut and two in Algiers. During the first three days of the incident, hostages were released sequentially in exchange for fuel and other demands. From 16 June until the end of the incident, the plane remained on the ground at Beirut, where most of the remaining hostages, but not the three-member crew, were hidden throughout the city to inhibit a rescue attempt. As the incident dragged on, the number of terrorists increased, thereby indicating state assistance.