Seven Anti-Communists Seize Control of Hungarian
Airliner in Flight, Crash-Land in West Germany
T XT./"* /“VT PT A r\rr /-i_ , n A. _ _ __
Seven desperate anti-Communists
asked political asylum Saturday
after seizing control of a Hungar
ian airliner in flight and crash
landing in West Germany.
Twelve of the 19 Hungarian
passengers and crewmen—includ
ing a policeman—were hospital
ized with injuries received in a
bloody, bruising battle for control
of the plane and from bone
breaking loops made by the air
craft when the pilot tried to upset
the plot.
Five of those in the hospital
were members of the band which
seized the plane late Friday.
The seven passengers and crew
not injured were under police
guard in the village of Manching,
near here.
Police said an eighth person
aboard the plane who first had
indicated he would join the plot
ters in asking asylum may have
changed his mind about staying
in the West.
The daring break through the
iron curtain—perhaps the most
spectacular in a long series of
such breaks—was planned far in
advance.
The leader, Gyorgy Polyak, a
Hungarian World War II pilot re
ferred to by his comrades as “the
lieutenant,” was the only one
with a gun. The others were
armed with iron rods secreted in
their clothes.
At a signal they attacked the
other passengers with the iron
bars because they had been tipped
a secret police agent was aboard
and they had no way of telling
which one it was.
One of the plotters, Joseph Jak
aby, a 25-year-old Budapest stu
dent, said he had relatives in the
United States. He slipped a mess
age to reporters asking them to
contact Mrs. William L. Farmer,
Chicago. The message said “Please
send me money.” He did not indi
cate his relationship to Mrs. Far
mer.
One of the other rebels, Gabor
Kiss, a Budapest student, said at
a prearranged signal in which
Polyak shouted, “Look, there’s
Gyor <a Hungarian town',” the
plotters pulled out their concealed
iron rods and began hitting the
other passengers.
In the battle, which turned the
interior of the plane into wreck
age, Polyak disarmed the secret
police officer, who drew a gun,
and turned all four crew mem
bers out of the contrtol cabin ex
cept the chief pilot.
“Olyak sat down beside the
chief pilot and together they flew
the plane,” Kiss said. “He kept a
gun pointed at the head of the
chief pilot in case he tried any
thing more.”
The plane was forced to fly
low, at times only about 30 feet
above the ground, Kiss said, and
the plane hedgehopped along the
Danube through Austria and into
West Germany.
“We found our map—which we
had lost in the chaos of the ride-r
after we got control of the plane,**
Kiss related. "We decided to head
for Munich. But we were running
very low on gas. We flew by com
pass and the radio was out of
order. Over Ingolstadt we saw
what looked like an abandoned
airfield and decided to land. We
were still not sure whether we
were in East or West Germany.”
“It was the U.S. Air Force's still
uncompleted air base at Man
ching, 150 miles from the Hun
garian border.
i.. "' —
Mexican Mountaineers
Will Tackle Alaska’s
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