1985, WHEN WE HAD A REAL COUNTRY: When President Ronald Reagan learned of Klinghoffer's murder, he issued an immediate directive: intercept the airliner. ​On the night of October 10, four F-14 Tomcat fighter jets from the USS Saratoga (Carrier Air Wing 17), supported by an E-2C Hawkeye radar plane, roared off the catapults into the dark Mediterranean sky:

Facing orders from Washington to seize the terrorists, the American commander on the ground stood down after a tense standoff to prevent friendly fire between allied troops. The four ship hijackers were taken into custody by Italian authorities, tried, and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences, with trigger-man al-Molqi receiving 30 years. Abu Abbas, who held an Iraqi diplomatic passport, was controversially allowed by the Italian government to slip out to Rome and Yugoslavia before the US could execute an arrest warrant, only to be finally captured decades later by US special forces during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

— sportified (@sportified25) October 29, 2026