09/08/2026
On September 6, 1970, El Al Flight 219 was flying from Tel Aviv to New York with a stop at Amsterdam when it became one of the targets in a coordinated wave of aircraft hijackings carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Boeing 707 was carrying 138 passengers and 10 crew members.
Before the flight left Amsterdam, El Al security officials warned Captain Uri Bar-Lev that four suspicious passengers had attempted to board.
Two men carrying consecutive Senegalese passport numbers were prevented from boarding, but another couple using Honduran passports was allowed onto the aircraft after security checks. They were Palestinian militant Leila Khaled and Nicaraguan-American Patrick Argüello.
About half an hour after takeoff, while the aircraft was climbing through roughly 29,000 feet, the pair launched their attack. Armed with pistols and hand gr***des, they moved toward the reinforced cockpit door and demanded entry, threatening to kill a flight attendant and blow up the aircraft if the pilots refused.
Instead of opening the cockpit, Bar-Lev made a desperate decision based on his knowledge of the Boeing 707's capabilities. He ordered the aircraft into a steep dive.
The sudden negative-G maneuver threw the hijackers off balance while the passengers, who were strapped into their seats, remained comparatively protected. The aircraft reportedly lost about 10,000 feet in a minute.
During the struggle, Argüello fired several shots and seriously wounded flight attendant Shlomo Vider. One gr***de failed to explode. As the aircraft recovered from the dive, an El Al security officer shot Argüello, mortally wounding him, while passengers and crew overpowered Khaled.
The hijacking had lasted only a few minutes, but the emergency was not over. Bar-Lev was ordered to return to Israel, yet he believed Vider might die from his injuries without immediate medical treatment.
He therefore diverted the aircraft to London's Heathrow Airport. British medical personnel rushed Vider to hospital, where he survived after emergency treatment. Argüello died while being taken to hospital, while Khaled was arrested by British authorities.
The incident became a remarkable success amid the wider Dawson's Field hijackings that day. TWA and Swissair aircraft were successfully hijacked and taken to Jordan, while the two conspirators denied boarding the El Al flight later seized Pan Am Flight 93.
The aftermath created a second controversy. British authorities questioned Bar-Lev and investigated the circumstances surrounding Argüello's death. A subsequent coroner's inquest rejected allegations that the hijacker had been deliberately murdered after being subdued and returned a verdict of lawful homicide, accepting the use of force in response to the attack.
Bar-Lev also faced criticism inside Israel for ignoring orders to return home and for diverting to London. He eventually received official recognition for his bravery. Months later, Israeli legislation strengthened pilots' authority to resist hijackings and provided legal protection for actions taken while defending their passengers.
The investigation and later accounts showed that it was an attempted hijacking deliberately stopped by the crew's refusal to surrender the cockpit, an extreme evasive maneuver, armed security and the rapid intervention of passengers. Of the 148 people aboard, one hijacker died and one crew member was seriously injured; everyone else survived.
