LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking

(Redirected from LOT Flight 165 hijacking trial) 1978 aircraft hijacking

This article is about the hijacking committed in 1978. For the 1969 crash, see LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165.

LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking
Hijacking
The hijacked Tu-134 at Tempelhof on 30 August 1978
Date	30 August 1978
Summary	Hijacking
Site	Hijacker forced the aircraft to land at U.S. Air Force base at Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin
Aircraft type	Tupolev Tu-134
Operator	LOT Polish Airlines
Registration	SP-LGC
Flight origin	Gdańsk Airport
Destination	Schönefeld Airport
Passengers	62
Crew	7
Fatalities	0
Injuries	0
Survivors	69

LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking was the hijacking of a LOT Polish Airlines flight that occurred on 30 August 1978. The hijackers from East Germany (GDR) were seeking political asylum in West Germany (FRG). The plane landed safely, and the primary hijacker was tried and convicted by a West German jury in the United States Court for Berlin and sentenced to time served, the nine months he had already served during pretrial detention. This was the only case heard before the United States Court for Berlin.

Background

The GDR citizens Hans Detlef Alexander Tiede (aka Detlev Tiede) and his friend Ingrid Ruske and her 12-year-old daughter had travelled to Poland to meet with Ruske's West German boyfriend Horst Fischer, who had planned to bring forged West German papers to enable their escape by ferry to West German Travemünde. However, Fischer did not turn up, and after four days of waiting for him Ruske and Tiede – not having any information as to his whereabouts – concluded that Fischer must have been arrested when travelling through East Germany. Their conclusion was right, as Fischer had indeed been arrested and would later be sentenced to eight years of jail in East Germany for preparing their Republikflucht ("desertion from the Republic"), a crime under GDR law.

Ruske and Tiede then concluded that they were trapped and that prison awaited them if they returned to East Germany. So they developed a plan to hijack a plane headed for East Berlin's Schönefeld Airport and force a landing at the U.S. Air Force base at Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin. They bought a toy starting pistol at a Polish flea market, and then booked three tickets on LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 from Gdańsk, Poland, to East Berlin.

Hijacking

On 30 August 1978, Tiede and Ruske hijacked a Polish LOT Tupolev Tu-134 airliner with 62 passengers making Flight 165 from Gdańsk to East Berlin. Tiede, armed with the toy starting pistol, took a flight attendant hostage and succeeded in forcing the aircraft to land at Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin.

Of the 62 passengers, there were 50 GDR citizens, 10 Polish citizens, a man from Munich and a woman from West Berlin. The passengers were given the opportunity to remain in West Berlin or to return to East Berlin. Not only did Tiede, Ruske and her daughter claim sanctuary in West Berlin, but so did another seven East Germans: a radiology assistant from Erfurt, a couple with two children and a couple from Leipzig, although the radiology assistant returned to East Germany the next day. The remaining passengers were interviewed and taken to East Berlin on a bus.

Trial

The West German Federal Government was unwilling to prosecute Tiede and Ruske because of the West German policy of supporting the right of East Germans to flee oppression in the GDR. The United States government had successfully persuaded the East German government to sign a hijacking treaty. Consequently, the case was prosecuted in the United States Court for Berlin, with charges bought under the terms of The Hague Convention as incorporated into the laws of the United States, as the plane landed at a US Air Force base.

US federal judge Herbert Jay Stern ruled that the defendants were entitled to be tried by a jury, as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a procedure abolished in Germany by the Emminger Reform of 1924. The case against Tiede's co-defendant Ingrid Ruske was dismissed because she had not been notified of her legal rights before signing a confession. Tiede was acquitted on three charges, including hijacking and possession of a firearm, but convicted of taking a hostage. The jury found Tiede guilty of hostage-taking, but not guilty of acts against the safety of civil aviation, deprivation of liberty and battery. The minimum sentence for hostage-taking was three years. However, Stern sentenced Tiede to time served during pretrial detention, about nine months. Stern accounted for Tiede's emergency situation and plight to face imprisonment in East Germany for attempted Republikflucht.

In popular culture

The 1984 book which Judge Stern wrote about the event, Judgment in Berlin, was made into a movie of the same name in 1988. Martin Sheen depicted him.

Notes

(in German) – "Lars-Broder Keil, "Aus der Flucht wird eine politische Affäre" (trl. The escape turns into a political affair". Berliner Morgenpost. 31 August 2008. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
^ (in German) – "Joachim Nawrocki, "Berlin: "Wollen Sie solche Richter?"" (trl.: Berlin: "Is this the kind of judges you want?") 11". Die Zeit. 6 January 1979. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
(in German) – Matthias Göpfert, LexiTV – Wissen für alle (trl. LexiTV – Knowledge for all), first transmitted in April 2001, retransmitted in "Entführungen" (trl. kidnappings) by Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk-Fernsehen on 23 September 2008, 14:30h.
^ "US Judge: Berlin Plane Hijack Trial Had Parallels to Guantanamo". Deutsche Welle. 30 August 2008. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
^ "Hijacked to Capitalism: Unwitting East German Defectors Revisit Decision to Stay or Go". Der Spiegel. 20 May 2010. Retrieved 19 April 2014.
"UNITED STATES, as the United States Element, Allied Kommandatura, Berlin, v. HANS DETLEF ALEXANDER TIEDE and INGRID RUSKE, Defendants". United States High Commissioner for Germany. 14 March 1979. Archived from the original on 13 January 2011. Retrieved 25 July 2009. This is a criminal proceeding arising out of the alleged diversion ... of a Polish aircraft by the defendants from its scheduled landing in East Berlin to a forced landing in West Berlin. United States authorities exercised jurisdiction over this matter and convened this Court
Judgment in Berlin at IMDb

External links

Judgment in Berlin at IMDb

v t e Aviation accidents and incidents in 1978 (1978)
Jan 1 Air India Flight 855Feb 11 Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314Feb 17 British Army Gazelle downingMar 1 Continental Airlines Flight 603Mar 3 LAV HS 748 accidentMar 9 China Airlines Flight 831Mar 13 United Airlines Flight 696Mar 16 Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Flight 107Apr 20 Korean Air Lines Flight 902May 8 National Airlines Flight 193May 19 Aeroflot Flight 6709May 23 Yegoryevsk Tu-144 crashJun 21 Iranian Chinook shootdownJun 26 Air Canada Flight 189Jun 26 Helikopter Service Flight 165Aug 9 Olympic Airways Flight 411Aug 30 LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijackingSep 3 Air Rhodesia Flight 825Sep 7 Air Ceylon Avro HS 748 bombingSep 25 Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182Sep 26 Air Caribbean Flight 309Sep 30 Finnair Flight 405Oct 3 Finnish Air Force DC-3 crashOct 7 Aeroflot Flight 1080Oct 21 Valentich disappearanceOct 23 Aeroflot Flight 6515Nov 15 Loftleiðir Flight 001Dec 4 Rocky Mountain Airways Flight 217Dec 17 Indian Airlines Flight 403Dec 20 Indian Airlines Flight 410Dec 21 TWA Flight 541Dec 22 Cessna 188 Pacific rescueDec 23 Alitalia Flight 4128Dec 28 United Airlines Flight 173
1977 ◄ ► 1979

Aviation accidents and incidents in 1978 (1978)

Jan 1 Air India Flight 855Feb 11 Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314Feb 17 British Army Gazelle downingMar 1 Continental Airlines Flight 603Mar 3 LAV HS 748 accidentMar 9 China Airlines Flight 831Mar 13 United Airlines Flight 696Mar 16 Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Flight 107Apr 20 Korean Air Lines Flight 902May 8 National Airlines Flight 193May 19 Aeroflot Flight 6709May 23 Yegoryevsk Tu-144 crashJun 21 Iranian Chinook shootdownJun 26 Air Canada Flight 189Jun 26 Helikopter Service Flight 165Aug 9 Olympic Airways Flight 411Aug 30 LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijackingSep 3 Air Rhodesia Flight 825Sep 7 Air Ceylon Avro HS 748 bombingSep 25 Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182Sep 26 Air Caribbean Flight 309Sep 30 Finnair Flight 405Oct 3 Finnish Air Force DC-3 crashOct 7 Aeroflot Flight 1080Oct 21 Valentich disappearanceOct 23 Aeroflot Flight 6515Nov 15 Loftleiðir Flight 001Dec 4 Rocky Mountain Airways Flight 217Dec 17 Indian Airlines Flight 403Dec 20 Indian Airlines Flight 410Dec 21 TWA Flight 541Dec 22 Cessna 188 Pacific rescueDec 23 Alitalia Flight 4128Dec 28 United Airlines Flight 173

1977 ◄ ► 1979

v t e Aviation accidents and incidents in Germany
German Empire (1871–1918)	Otto Lilienthal (August 1896) Erbslöh (July 1910) Helgoland Island air disaster (September 1913) Johannisthal air disaster (October 1913)
Nazi Germany (1933–1945)	Swissair Tuttlingen accident (July 1934) Deutsche Lufthansa Ju 90 crash (November 1940)
Occupied Germany (1945–1949)	Gatow air disaster (April 1948)
West Germany and West Berlin (1949–1991)	KLM Flight 592 (March 1952) Sabena Convair Crash (October 1953) Altensteig mid-air collision (August 1955) Munich air disaster (February 1958) template Munich C-131 crash (December 1960) ČSA Flight 511 (March 1961) Lufthansa Flight 005 (January 1966) Pan Am Flight 708 (November 1966) Paninternational Flight 112 (September 1971) LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking (August 1978) Royal Air Force Jaguar shootdown incident (May 1982) Rhein-Main Starfighter crash (May 1983) Nürnberger Flugdienst Flight 108 (February 1988) Ramstein air show disaster (August 1988) Remscheid A-10 crash (December 1988) 1989 Germany mid-air collision (January 1989)
East Germany (1949–1991)	F-84 Thunderstreak incident (September 1961) T-39 shootdown incident (January 1964) Königs Wusterhausen air disaster (August 1972) Interflug Flight 1107 (September 1975) Aeroflot Flight 892 (December 1986) Interflug Flight 102 (June 1989)
Germany (1991 onwards)	Überlingen mid-air collision (July 2002) Swiss International Air Lines Flight 850 (July 2002)
Includes both the former East Germany and West Germany

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