On December 21st, 2018 a 17-year old hijacker forced a TWA passenger plane to land at the Williamson County Airport in Marion.
On the plane were 87 passengers and the hijacker threatened to blow the plane up unless authorities released a con man by the name of Garrett Trapnell. At the time of the hijacking, Trapnell was in Federal Court in Benton, where he was recently convicted for his role in a previous hijacking.
In this report, WSIU visits with two longtime southern Illinois reporters who covered the bizarre event. Mike Murphy, is the Sports Director of the River Radio Group of Stations and is also the General Manager of Custom Tours and Travel, based in Herrin Illinois, and Joey Helleney, a Senior Lecturer in the SIU Carbondale Department of Radio and Television and Digital Media.
This hijacking story also has a funny twist as we learn that, one of the reporters, in an effort to get to the scene as quickly as possible, literally hitched a ride on the back of a speeding firetruck. The other reporter in this story recounts how he came very close to being led away in handcuffs by the F-B-I after the reporter got a little too close.
