The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story

In June of 1985, TWA Athens-to-Rome flight 847 was seized by two fanatical, grenade-wielding Hezbollah Moslems. The hijacking was dragged out for 17 days, during which time several of the terrified passengers were beaten and one was killed. Written by Norman Morrill, the made-for-TV The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson stars Lindsay Wagner as courageous American purser Uli Derickson, whose knowledge of German enables her to communicate with the chief hijacker, a Shiite Lebanese who calls himself Castro (Eli Danker). When the ordeal was over, Derickson was credited with saving many lives and preventing the crisis from becoming far worse than it already was. It is a tribute to Lindsay Wagner's acting talent that, although most of the film's dialogue is spoken in German, the audience never has any difficulty following the story. (official distributor synopsis)