“He has pulled a hand-grenade pin and is ready to blow up the aircraft if he has to. We must land at Beirut. No alternative.” These are the frantic words of pilot John L. Testrake to the control tower at the Beirut International Airport on 14 June 1985 during the hijacking of TWA flight 847 (Mickolus, Sandler, and Murdock, 1989, vol. 2, p. 219). Testrake’s plea came after Lebanese officials had blocked the runway with fire trucks to keep the Boeing 727–200, with less than fifteen minutes of fuel remaining, from landing. Flight 847 was hijacked en route from Athens to Rome with 145 passengers (including the two Lebanese hijackers) and 8 crew members. The hijackers, armed with a chrome-plated pistol and two hand grenades, stormed the cockpit and took over the plane ten minutes after takeoff; thus began a hijacking that would last until 30 June as the plane flew back and forth between Algiers and Beirut. In total, the plane made three landings in Beirut and two in Algiers. During the first three days of the incident, hostages were released sequentially in exchange for fuel and other demands. From 16 June until the end of the incident, the plane remained on the ground at Beirut, where most of the remaining hostages, but not the three-member crew, were hidden throughout the city to inhibit a rescue attempt. As the incident dragged on, the number of terrorists increased, thereby indicating state assistance. The world’s media provided nonstop coverage of the seventeen-day ordeal, which captured the world’s attention. In the end, the hijackers succeeded in pressuring Israel to release 735 prisoners from the Atlit prison. Moreover, the United States had to reaffirm its support for the sovereignty of Lebanon and agree not to retaliate against the Amal militia that had aided the hijackers in Beirut. The hijackers were allowed to read a statement and then escaped. Flight 847 reflects the type of media coverage that only a few hostage-taking missions have achieved.

On 1 September 2004, roughly 25 Chechen and other terrorists held over 1,000 people hostage in a school in Beslan, Russia, for 52 hours. Once again, the world’s attention turned to Beslan, given the large number of children being held as hostages and the apparent ruthlessness of the terrorists. The outcome of past incidents involving Chechen rebels – for example, the October 2002 seizure of a Moscow theater – gave the world ample reason to be apprehensive. At 1 p.m. on 3 September, the incident ended horribly as emergency personnel were being allowed by the terrorists to retrieve the bodies of dead hostages. Apparently, the hostage takers mistakenly thought that a rescue mission was under way and began firing. Fire was returned by security forces and the townspeople as bedlam broke loose. Terrorist-planted bombs in the school also began going off. By the time the shootings and explosions had stopped, 340 people had perished and hundreds were injured.