Word: aircrafting
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...their country since 1973, but many of them continue fighting the regime from abroad. In an attempt to draw attention to last week's 13th anniversary of the Pinochet coup, a group of 29 exiles arrived by plane in Santiago from Argentina. They were not permitted to leave the aircraft, and after four hours were flown back to Buenos Aires. Later in the week Pinochet announced that a plan to permit about a third of the exiles to return to Chile had been postponed...
...Santa Barbara, the Reagan Administration condemned the hijacking and ordered a Sixth Fleet aircraft carrier, the Forrestal, to proceed from Naples to the vicinity of Cyprus in the event that the Pan Am jet was flown there. Vice Admiral John Poindexter, the National Security Adviser, telephoned news of the hijacking to President Reagan at his ranch in the Santa Ynez Mountains just as the Reagans were about to set out on their daily horseback ride. Later the White House released a statement declaring, "Nothing can justify such barbarism. We can think of no punishment too severe for the criminals responsible...
Piecing together a clear picture of precisely what happened during the closing minutes of the incident was complicated by the inconsistency of Pakistani authorities in explaining what they had done. At first they implied that once the aircraft lights had failed, they had ordered their commandos to storm the plane. The Reagan Administration immediately announced that the Pakistanis had handled the situation "boldly and decisively" -- a statement intended mainly to demonstrate Washington's satisfaction with Pakistan's cooperation...
...failed generator had precipitated the fire fight and suspected that the Pakistanis were trying to cover up a bungled commando operation. But in the end, the Pakistanis may simply have decided that it was better to risk the lives of some passengers on the ground than to allow the aircraft to take...
Winston Churchill said that in international affairs "to jaw-jaw is better than to war-war." That is normally the case in dealing with hijackers. Says Dr. David Hubbard, a consultant on terrorism to the Federal Aviation Administration: "The record shows that when commandos storm aircraft, the number of people killed increases. If the terrorists don't kill them, the security forces do." While the hijacking in Karachi last week and one in Malta last December both ended violently, several have been resolved by negotiations. The outcome of some recent hijackings...