Author: Brendan Koerner

They say...

In an America torn apart by the Vietnam War and the demise of sixties idealism, airplane hijackings were astonishingly routine. Over a five-year period starting in 1968, the desperate and disillusioned seized commercial jets nearly once a week, using guns, bombs, and jars of acid. Some hijackers wished to escape to foreign lands, where they imagined being hailed as heroes; others aimed to swap hostages for sacks of cash. Their criminal exploits mesmerized the country, never more so than when the young lovers at the heart of Brendan I. Koerner's The Skies Belong to Us pulled off the longest-distance hijacking in American history.

A shattered Army veteran and a mischievous party girl, Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow commandeered Western Airlines Flight 701 as a vague protest against the war. Through a combination of savvy and dumb luck, the couple managed to flee across an ocean with a half-million dollars in ransom, a feat that made them notorious around the globe....

I say...

For me, memories of another time when flying began to change from a "special event" largely for the well to do, to the chore it is today. My first flights were in the 1970's when airlines were still regulated and "security" was minimal (except in Germany, which was a whole other deal during the Baader-Meinhof years.) The book was "okay". It dragged a bit and I wish there was more insight but still a reasonable read.