Word: mellinger
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Climbing into the cockpit with Cox and two other crewmen, Melling made no protest when Senior Hijacker Samir Mohammed Katar, 28, took the fifth seat. "Where the hell do you want to go?" he asked.
Aloft, Melling insisted upon notifying ground control of his destination. "If we don't, we're likely to hit another aircraft."
"We'll put it down in the sea," said Melling casually. "There are sharks in these waters, but that's where we'll go." He described in vivid detail the risks of ditching: the wheels break off, the plane smashes open, passengers are disgorged helplessly into waiting schools of sharks...
But even there the landing went badly. Djibouti control at first accepted the plane as a flight in distress, then waved it off when an Air France pilot identified it as Cyprus 007. "Air France blew the gaffe on us," complained Melling, who landed anyway. There they refueled and took...
After landing at Larnaca, Melling pulled up to the terminal and shut off his engines. Suddenly he noticed a strange plane taxiing by. It was a C-130E with Egyptian markings. What if the hijackers saw the plane and panicked? Melling quickly distracted them. Motioning behind him toward the cabin...