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Jackie Nink Pflug, with Peter J. Kisilos, Hazelden Publishing (page 3 of 11) Page 3 of 11
Chapter 4: Alive, but What Kind of Life?
Scott and the girls’ volleyball team were still in Athens while I was being hijacked on Saturday night. They won the tournament that night, a few hours after I left for Cairo. Their victory celebration extended late into the night. Before going to bed, they planned to meet at the Acropolis at eight the next morning. From there, they’d board a tour bus to do some last-minute sightseeing before flying back to Cairo that afternoon.
Scott arrived at the rendezvous point early, about 7:45 A.M., to greet the tired girls as they straggled in. About half the team had arrived at the checkpoint when Tonya Smith, an eleventh grader at CAC, pulled up in a cab where Scott was waiting.
Tonya walked up to Scott and jokingly said, “Well, we don’t have to worry about getting hijacked. An EgyptAir plane was hijacked last night.”
Hijackings were so common in the Middle East that year that people often joked about the possibility of being in one.
“What!” Scott said, in stunned disbelief.
“EgyptAir was hijacked last night,” she repeated.
This time the incredible news sank in.
“Jackie was on EgyptAir!” he shouted.
Scott knew right away that it was my flight that had been hijacked. I’d changed my reservations so many times, but he’d remembered that I was on the last EgyptAir flight leaving Athens on Saturday night.
“I’m out of here,” Scott told Peter, the other CAC chaperone in Athens.
Scott hailed a cab to the EgyptAir office at the Athens airport. On the way to the airport, he listened to a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news report on the hijacking:
Late last evening at 9:37 P.M., EgyptAir Flight 648 was hijacked by members of a terrorist group calling themselves “The Egypt Revolution.” The hijackers’ original destination was said to be Libya, but the plane was low on fuel and was forced to land at Malta’s Luqa Airport.
The hijackers demanded fuel to be able to continue on to Libya. They threatened to begin executing passengers every fifteen minutes until their demands were met. Two Israeli women were shot and thrown from the plane. One apparently managed to survive.
An American, Patrick Baker, was also shot. His condition remains unknown. Two American women are also on board: Scarlett Rogencamp, of Oceanside, California, and Jackie Nink Pflug, of Pasadena, Texas. Negotiations for the release of the ninety-eight hostages continue. . . .
When Scott arrived at the EgyptAir office, they were expecting him. He spent several frustrating hours at the EgyptAir counter, waiting for more news but learning nothing new. The only thing EgyptAir could verify was that I was on the flight. They didn’t know any details beyond that.
Scott hung out there for two or three hours, then got fed up and left. Before leaving, he heard news reports that I’d been shot in the face and had a broken nose. It was still very sketchy.
* * *
The early hours of the hijacking were hard on my family and friends back home. My parents learned of the hijacking from the Saturday night news.
My mom had a sinking feeling as she watched the images on her TV screen. I’d written a week earlier to tell them I’d be in Greece with Scott and the girls’ volleyball team that Thanksgiving weekend.
“Oh, my God, I think Jackie is on that plane!” she said.
During the first few hours of the crisis, information was incomplete. There was confusion about exactly what happened. From the early news accounts, they still didn’t know if I was, indeed, a passenger on the plane.
No one in my family knew exactly who to call for more information on the hijacking. Gloria called Channel 2 and said, “I think my sister is on that plane.”
“Where do your parents live?” the Channel 2 reporter asked, smelling a news story in the making.
“I can’t tell you that,” Gloria said.
A reporter from Channel 2 called back to say that I was on the plane. The reporter also contacted the U.S. State Department and, from then on, the State Department stayed in close contact with my family.
Barb Wilson called my friend Debbie Reno to ask if she was watching television. “You might want to turn on CNN,” Barb said. “They have something about Jackie on.”
“What?” Debbie said.
“The plane Jackie was on was hijacked,” Barb reported, “and she has been shot. They think she might be dead.”
When Debbie got off the phone, she called a prayer hot line at her church to pray for me.
Mom and Dad only got an hour’s sleep on Saturday night. A spokesperson from the State Department called every thirty minutes with updates on the hijacking.
The early news offered little comfort.
At about 2 A.M., the phone rang again. My dad answered.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” the State Department spokesperson said, “but your daughter is dead.”
“What does she look like?” Dad asked.
“She’s blonde,” he answered.
“No, she’s not,” he said, “Jackie is dark.”
On further checking, the State Department discovered it had confused me with Scarlett Rogencamp, who had light hair.
For my parents, the ordeal was far from over. The news kept changing so quickly. My parents went from hearing that I was dead, to hearing that I might have just broken my nose, to hearing that I was okay and on my way to the hospital.
* * *
Scott didn’t believe the early reports because, in his mind, the officials didn’t seem confident about the accuracy of their information. Someone at the airport offered Scott a ride to the American embassy. His goal was to somehow reach Malta and be near me while the drama unfolded. Scott knew that the American embassy was the place to go for help in a situation like this.
The embassy was already on top security alert. All vehicles entering the embassy compound were checked for bombs by security guards.
At first, it appeared that Scott couldn’t get to Malta. Embassy officials told him that Malta’s tiny airport would be closed until the hijacking was over. He might have to watch the drama unfold on television.
Excerpted from Miles to Go Before I Sleep by Jackie Nink Pflug, with Peter J. Kisilos, published by Hazelden Publishing, www.hazelden.org. Copyright © 1996 by Hazelden Foundation. Used with permision. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission from the publisher. To learn more about the author, go to: www.jackiepflug.com.
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