This article is about the 1969 hijacking. For the 1986 bombing, see TWA Flight 840 (1986)

TWA Flight 840 (1986)

Trans World Airlines Flight 840, registration N54340, was a Boeing 727-231 flying en route from Rome's Fiumicino Airport to Athens. A bomb was detonated on the aircraft while it was over Argos, Greece, ejecting four American passengers to their deaths below. Five others on the aircraft were...

.

TWA Flight 840 was a Trans World Airlines

Trans World Airlines

Trans World Airlines was an American airline that existed from 1925 until it was bought out by and merged with American Airlines in 2001. It was a major domestic airline in the United States and the main U.S.-based competitor of Pan American World Airways on intercontinental routes from 1946...

 flight from Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport

Leonardo da Vinci International Airport

Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport , also commonly known as Fiumicino Airport, is Italy's largest airport with 36.3 million passengers served in 2010, located in Fiumicino, 35 km from Rome's historic city centre....

 in Rome, Italy to Ben Gurion International Airport

Ben Gurion International Airport

Ben Gurion International Airport , also referred to by its Hebrew acronym Natbag , is the largest and busiest international airport in Israel, handling 12,160,339 passengers in 2010...

 in Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, that was hijacked

Aircraft hijacking

Aircraft hijacking is the unlawful seizure of an aircraft by an individual or a group. In most cases, the pilot is forced to fly according to the orders of the hijackers. Occasionally, however, the hijackers have flown the aircraft themselves, such as the September 11 attacks of 2001...

 on 29 August 1969. There were no injuries or fatalities, although the aircraft was significantly damaged, and two hostages were held for two months.

In August 1969, leaders in the Palestinian

Palestinian people

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 left-wing organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a Palestinian Marxist-Leninist organisation founded in 1967. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization , the largest being Fatah...

 (PFLP) learned that Yitzak Rabin, the Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i Ambassador to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 was scheduled to be aboard a Trans World Airlines

Trans World Airlines

Trans World Airlines was an American airline that existed from 1925 until it was bought out by and merged with American Airlines in 2001. It was a major domestic airline in the United States and the main U.S.-based competitor of Pan American World Airways on intercontinental routes from 1946...

 (TWA) Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

-Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

-Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

 flight. Late that month (on the 29th), two operatives, Leila Khaled

Leila Khaled

Leila Khaled is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine . She is currently a member of the Palestinian National Council...

 and Salim Issawi, hijacked the aircraft. The operation was successful, although Rabin was not aboard. The hijackers demanded that the pilots land the aircraft at Damascus

Damascus International Airport

Damascus International Airport is a public airport located in Damascus, the capital of Syria. Officially opened in the mid 1970s, DAM is Syria's busiest international airport. The airport is experiencing significant annual passenger growth rates...

, Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. All hostages except two Israeli passengers were released and no one was injured, although the nose section of the aircraft, a Boeing 707

Boeing 707

The Boeing 707 is a four-engine narrow-body commercial passenger jet airliner developed by Boeing in the early 1950s. Its name is most commonly pronounced as "Seven Oh Seven". The first airline to operate the 707 was Pan American World Airways, inaugurating the type's first commercial flight on...

, was blown up. The two Israeli hostages were released in December that year in return for 71 Syrian and Egyptian soldiers released by Israel.

The aircraft sustained $4 million in damage. Boeing repaired the aircraft, fitting the nose section from 707-465 G-ARWE. This aircraft had been destroyed by fire in an accident

BOAC Flight 712

BOAC Flight 712 for Monday 8 April 1968 was a British Overseas Airways Corporation service operated by a Boeing 707-465 from London Heathrow Airport bound for Sydney via Kloten, Zürich and Singapore, which suffered an engine failure at takeoff that quickly led to a major fire. The engine fell...

 at Heathrow on 8 April 1968, but the nose section was salvageable. The aircraft was re-registered N28714 and returned to service. In March 1980, the aircraft was withdrawn from service and flown to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base

Davis–Monthan Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located within the city limits, and approximately south-southeast of downtown, Tucson, Arizona....

 for use as spares for the KC-135 Stratotanker

KC-135 Stratotanker

The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker is an aerial refueling military aircraft. It and the Boeing 707 airliner were developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype. The KC-135 was the US Air Force's first jet-powered refueling tanker and replaced the KC-97 Stratotanker...

 fleet of the United States Air Force

United States Air Force

The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

. The aircraft's registration was canceled in March 1984.

See also

• List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners