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Author
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Topic: Chris Kraft on hijacked plane, almost shot (1965)
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Rusty B
Member Posts: 239
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Oct 2004
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posted 05-30-2011 12:43 PM
   
While looking at the Google newspaper archives for old space related stories, I came across this scary story in several newspapers about Christopher Kraft from a couple of weeks before the Gemini 7/6 mission (Nov. 17, 1965). Kraft was on a flight from Los Angeles to Florida when a 16 year old boy tried to hijack the plane to Cuba. Sitting across the aisle from Kraft, when asked what he had under a newspaper in his lap, the boy pointed a revolver in Kraft's face and tried to fan the gun's hammer, but it failed to go off. He then went down the aisle and fired about 6 shots into the floor. He later was overpowered by several NASA personnel and no one was hurt. Other NASA personnel aboard the DC-8 airliner included nearly the entire Gemini management team: Paul Haney Public Affairs, Chuck Mathews Gemini Program Mgr, Dr. Charles Berry astronaut physician, Max Faget asst director for engineering and development, Bill Schneider Gemini mission director, 11 NASA personnel in all. |
Blackarrow
Member Posts: 3120
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 05-30-2011 04:24 PM
See also "Flight" by Kraft himself, pages 238-239 (although he says nothing about the hijacker trying to shoot him by "fanning" the cocking hammer.) | |
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