19851776 Club
Navy fighters force the hijackers' jet down in Sicily
The Egyptian airliner was bound for Tunisia when F-14s off the USS Saratoga boxed it in over the Mediterranean.
Three days after Leon Klinghoffer was shot and thrown overboard from the Achille Lauro, his killers had reason to believe they were free. Egypt had let them go, and on October 10, 1985, a Boeing airliner carried the four hijackers and Abu Abbas toward Tunisia and apparent safety. U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcats launched from the carrier Saratoga intercepted the plane over the Mediterranean and forced it to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily. A tense standoff between American and Italian forces broke out on the tarmac before Italy took custody of the men, a confrontation that became known as the Sigonella Crisis…
