Anatomy of an Absolutely Wild 1970s Hijacking You’ve Never Heard Of

When Professor Roderick Hilsinger boarded Ethiopian Airlines Flight 708, he had no idea about the in-flight nightmare soon to unfold. Here’s how he—and 93 other passengers—survived the ordeal.

Illustrations by Julie Benbassat | Story edited by Jesse Sposato

Friday, December 8, 1972: As the captain flicked off the “Fasten Seat Belts” sign, Professor Roderick Hilsinger yawned and stretched. It was 7 a.m., a blazing East African sun rising outside the Boeing 720B’s starboard windows. Hilsinger had just wrapped up a whirlwind trip to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, where he and his colleague, Dr. Richard Wylie, had given a presentation on a proposed exchange program with their employer, Temple University. Now, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 708 was headed toward the then-Ethiopian city of Asmara, the first stop of a multi-leg route to Paris, where the two would board a Philadelphia-bound jet for home. 

The men were seated in the second row of the main cabin, Hilsinger in the aisle and Wylie by the window. On the inbound legs, their positions had been reversed. But as they’d boarded this morning, the 6-foot-1 Hilsinger claimed the aisle seat for himself. “It’s my turn to stretch out,” he told Wylie. “You take the inside.” A minor detail, but as with so many this morning, one that would take on outsize importance.

Now, as Hilsinger undid his lap belt and took full advantage of the extra legroom, he heard a woman speaking sharply behind him in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. At the sound of her voice, five men and another woman, spread throughout the cabin, all rose from their seats. They were armed with handguns.

Hilsinger, scarcely believing what he was seeing, watched as a young man in the next row stood, raised his gun toward the man seated next to him and shot him at point-blank range.