Download The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking AudioBook Free
In an America torn apart by the Vietnam Warfare and the demise of the idealism of the '60s, airplane hijackings were astonishingly routine. Over a five-year period starting in 1968, the desperate and disillusioned seized commercial jets almost once weekly, using weapons, bombs, and jars of acid. Some hijackers wanted to escape to international lands, where they dreamed being hailed as heroes; others aimed to swap hostages for sacks of cash. Their unlawful exploits mesmerized the country, never way more than when the young addicts in the centre of Brendan I. Koerner's The Skies Belong to Us pulled from the longest-distance hijacking in American record. A shattered Army veteran and a mischievous get together gal, Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow commandeered European Airlines Air travel 701 as a hazy protest contrary to the war. Through a mixture of savvy and dumb success, the couple managed to flee across an ocean with a half-million dollars in ransom, a feat that made them notorious around the world. Koerner spent four years chronicling this madcap story, that involves a ensemble of characters ranging from exiled African american Panthers, to African despots, to People from france movie stars. He combed through over 4,000 declassified documents and interviewed ratings of key numbers in the play - including one of the hijackers, whom Koerner found out living in total obscurity. Yet The Skies Belong to Us is more than just an enthralling yarn about a spectacular heist and its bittersweet, decades-long aftermath. Additionally it is a psychological family portrait of America at its most turbulent and a testament to the madness that can hold a nation when politics are unsuccessful.
