Chronology of Hostage Crisis

Sunday, June 30, 1985

*June 14: Two gunmen commandeer TWA Flight 847 carrying 153 passengers and crew, mostly Americans, en route to Rome from Athens. Hijackers order pilot to fly to Beirut. The Boeing 727 jet lands at Beirut International Airport, and hijackers threaten to kill passengers if fuel is not provided immediately. Hijackers release 19 women and children and order pilot to fly to Algiers. They issue a list of demands, including release of more than 700 prisoners held by Israel, most of them Lebanese Shiites, and threaten to execute hostages. Twenty-one more passengers, mostly American women and children, are freed. Airliner takes off for Beirut.

*June 15: Plane lands in Beirut. One hostage is shot in the head and his body is thrown onto tarmac. Amid confusion, more terrorists are believed to have scrambled aboard the plane to join the hijackers. The gunmen reiterate their threats and demands and take off for Algiers again. Two hours after landing in Algiers, gunmen release two women and a man. An accomplice to the hijackers, Ali Atweh, arrested at Athens airport, is flown to Algiers and traded for Greek passengers. TWA reports 51 hostages -- mostly women and children -- are freed. More than a dozen heavily armed hijackers, believed to be pro-Iranian Shiite Moslems, are reported aboard the plane. Hijackers release 10 more hostages.

*June 16: Hijackers release three hostages. The plane takes off for Beirut about an hour before a deadline the hijackers set for release of Shiite prisoners in Israel. The Israeli Cabinet meets to discuss the hijacking but does not release a statement. Plane lands in Beirut for the third time. TWA confirms people were removed from plane during second Beirut stop and says it believes some of them have "Jewish-sounding names." Hijackers free passenger Robert Peel Sr. of Hutchinson, Kan., who is ill, and release an appeal by the hostages urging President Reagan to refrain from "any direct military action" on their behalf. The Shiite Moslem militia, Amal, puts forces on alert in Beirut and seals off airport. The aircraft carrier Nimitz and guided-missile destroyer Kidd are ordered to positions off the coast of Lebanon. There are unconfirmed reports that the Delta Force, the U.S. antiterrorist squad, has been dispatched to the Middle East.

*June 17: Shiite Amal leader Nabih Berri says he has ordered the hostages taken off the plane to discourage a U.S. rescue attempt and assumes negotiations on behalf of the hijackers.

*June 18: Berri frees three hostages: a singer with U.S.-Greek citizenship, his American-born secretary and a Greek-American teen-ager. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres says Israel would consider releasing Shiite prisoners if asked by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Militiamen still hold 40 hostages, all believed to be Americans.

*June 19: Three ABC news correspondents allowed to approach the jetliner interview pilot John Testrake and crewmen under the watchful eye of Amal militiamen. Testrake says he and his fellow hostages would "all be dead men" if anyone tried to rescue them.

*June 20: Berri refuses a U.S. Embassy request to allow western correspondents to visit the 40 hostages. Five hostages appear at a chaotic news conference and say they are well treated but under stress and ask President Reagan not to attempt a rescue. Sources in Washington say smaller group held separately might be military personnel rather than passengers with Jewish-sounding names.

*June 21: About a thousand supporters of the extremist Shiite group Hezbollah, or Party of God, chanting, "Death to America, Death to Israel," storm onto a runway at Beirut airport to show support for the hijackers. The two-hour protest ends peacefully. Peres thanks Secretary of State George Shultz for refusing to negotiate with the hijackers.

*June 22: Berri warns United States against "muscle-flexing" as sources in Washington say three warships carrying 1,800 U.S. Marines arrived sometime the previous day off the Lebanese coast. Amal deploys antiaircraft batteries around airport and southern suburbs of Beirut

*June 23: Israel says it will free 31 of 766 prisoners it holds at Atlit Prison, stressing that the move is not linked to hostage crisis. Berri refuses to reciprocate by releasing any of the 40 American hostages and says all Shiites transferred in April from southern Lebanon to Atlit must be released.

*June 24: Israel frees 31 of the prisoners. Berri says American hostages cannot be released until all Shiite detainees are freed, and adds a new demand that American warships withdraw from Lebanon's coast.

*June 25: Berri rejects a European proposal to resolve the crisis as President Reagan threatens economic blockade, closing of Beirut airport and other measures to force the release of the 40 Americans. Berri says Red Cross workers had visited the hostages.

*June 26: Ailing hostage Jimmy Dell Palmer, 48, of Little Rock, Ark., is released and the United States launches an intensive diplomatic effort to secure the release of the remaining 39 hostages. Berri offers to transfer hostages to a Western European embassy in Beirut or to Syria.

*June 27: Berri expresses optimism that the crisis could be resolved soon. U.S. officials make the release of seven other Americans kidnaped in Lebanon during the past year part of any resolution of the dispute.

*June 28: President Reagan, in a speech in Chicago Heights, Ill., vows that "terrorists and those who support them . . . will be held to account." Syrian officials say the 39 hostages will be moved to Damascus the next day. A group of 32 hostages has farewell dinner at hotel near Beirut.

*June 29: Thirty-five of the hostages are moved to a Beirut schoolyard awaiting transfer to Damascus. Amal adds demand that United States guarantee that it will not retaliate once the hostages are free.