R.I.P. Uli Dickerson

It’s not often that a newspaper’s obituaries page takes notice of the death of a flight attendant, but Uli Derickson had one extraordinary journey aboard a TWA flight that sealed her place in history. In 1985, Derickson was among the crew flying from Athens to Rome on Flight 847 when two Lebanese men hijacked the plane, leading all on board on a terror-filled journey across the Middle East. Through it all, Derickson worked to protect the passengers, shouting “Enough” until the hijackers stopped beating one man, and finding ways to protect the identity of Jewish passengers. Astonishingly, according to Jon Thurber’s excellent obituary in the Los Angeles Times, Derickson was targeted for her efforts long after the hijacking. “She returned to her New Jersey home with her husband, Russell, a retired TWA pilot, and her son, Matthew,” the article states. “But unfounded reports, including some in the mainstream news media, that she had given the hijackers names of Jewish passengers on the flight brought threats from extremist groups. When the truth about her efforts to shield Jewish passengers was verified, she received threats from others. The family relocated to Arizona.” In the late-1980s, Lindsay Wagner played Derickson in a TV movie about the ordeal, “The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story.” Derickson had been fighting cancer. She died last Friday at the age of 60.

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