Dawson's field remains?

[Hartington]

What happened to the remains of the aircraft blown up at Dawson's Field? Are they still there? For that matter, where is Dawson's Field in Jordan?

[Fareastdriver]

I looked at the Lat/Long of the Wiki article but it just showed desert and judging by the topography there was never an airstrip there.

[KelvinD]

If you point Google Earth to 32, 06, 21N and 36,09,35E and use the historical view to roll back to 2003, it is visible.
On the latest images, the runway appears to still be there, with a couple of buildings bisecting it.

[DaveReidUK]

judging by the topography there was never an airstrip there.

There was, in fact it was built for the RAF.

[dixi188]

IIRC the VC-10 engines and horizontal stab. were returned to the UK.
The stab became a spare when a mod. program required removal for the work to be carried out.

I saw the engines at Heathrow during a visit to BOAC in 1971. They were all covered in sand. It was when the first 3 B747s had been delivered but were not flying due to union action.

I suspect the rest of the VC-10, the DC-8 and B707 were scrapped on site.

[Fareastdriver]

The Wiki reference point is about eight miles out.

[DaveReidUK]

The Wiki reference point is about eight miles out.

The Wikipedia article on the Dawson's Field hijackings quotes the coordinates of a clearly recognisable airfield.

Are you saying that's not actually Dawson's Field ?

[KelvinD]

The Wikipedia coordinates are accurate. The "8 miles out" presumably refers to the current field. Refer to my post #3.

[Harry Wayfarers]

I Google Earth'd to the coordinates above and sure enough there was a runway with two buildings erected about mid point and clearly hardstandings etc. still visible on what would have been the airfield.

[KelvinD]

Harry: The odd thing is the airfield (as was) appears to be fenced off all round. Wonder why?

[barry lloyd]

I passed very close to the area a few years ago, but there did not appear to be anything aviation-related in sight. A few huts and other buildings, but the area appeared to be abandoned.

Harry: The odd thing is the airfield (as was) appears to be fenced off all round. Wonder why?

Yes, it is. There were signs of construction, equipment, materials etc.,but no sign of any work taking place.

[Harry Wayfarers]

Class ... :

After being informed by intercom that a hijacking was in progress, Captain Uri Bar Lev decided not to accede to their demands:
"I decided that we were not going to be hijacked. The security guy was sitting here ready to jump. I told him that I was going to put the plane into negative-G mode. Everyone would fall. When you put the plane into negative, it's like being in a falling elevator. Instead of the plane flying this way, it dives and everyone who is standing falls down."[6] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson%27s_Field_hijackings#cite_note-american-6)
Bar Lev put the plane into a steep nosedive which threw the two hijackers off-balance. Argüello reportedly threw his sole grenade down the airliner aisle, but it failed to explode, and he was hit over the head with a bottle of whiskey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey) by a passenger after he drew his pistol. Argüello shot steward (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_attendant) Shlomo Vider and according to the passengers and Israeli security personnel, was then shot by a sky marshal.[7] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson%27s_Field_hijackings#cite_note-flightcrews-7) His accomplice Khaled was subdued by security and passengers, while the plane made an emergency landing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_landing) at London Heathrow Airport (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Heathrow_Airport)

[ZFT]

IIRC the VC-10 engines and horizontal stab. were returned to the UK.
The stab became a spare when a mod. program required removal for the work to be carried out.

I saw the engines at Heathrow during a visit to BOAC in 1971. They were all covered in sand. It was when the first 3 B747s had been delivered but were not flying due to union action.

I suspect the rest of the VC-10, the DC-8 and B707 were scrapped on site.

Wasn't the B707 outer wing reused by BOAC on their B707 that lost the outer wing following an engine fire during a run up?

[teeteringhead]

I've probably told this dit before - so apologies if so - at my time of life it happens!

I was on my first tour in the RAF at Sharjah at the time. Amongst my carefully filed papers (ie - in a box somewhere in loft/garage/shed) I have a letter from the Officers' Mess at Sharjah along the lines of:

"We believe the cheque you wrote for your last Mess Bill was destroyed in the highjacked VC-10 at Dawson's Field. Please cancel the cheque and write a replacement!"

[DaveReidUK]

The Wikipedia article on the Dawson's Field hijackings quotes the coordinates of a clearly recognisable airfield.

Are you saying that's not actually Dawson's Field ?

After a bit more digging, I'm inclined to agree that it isn't.

Sources vary wildly in their description of where Dawson's Field actually is/was. As well as the Wikipedia coordinates, which put it about 6 miles NE of Zerqa/Zarqa (which in turn is about 12 miles NE of Amman), various contemporary sources describe it as "15 miles N of Amman", "20 miles N of Amman" and "25 miles E of Zerqa".

The most reliable account seems to come from a UPI report in the Washington Post of September 9th, 1970, from a journalist who drove out from Amman to interview the guerillas and hostages. He described his route as "78 miles from Amman, the last 22 across trackless desert" (no direction specified) and the landing strip as being in an area of salt flats, quoting the TWA captain as saying that, should they be allowed to fly out, there wouldn't be any problem as "the runway here is 30,000 feet long" (reminiscent of Edwards AFB).

http://www.vc10.net/History/Images/WreckageDawsonsfield.jpg

[Harry Wayfarers]

GPS coordinates of Dawson's Field hijackings, Jordan. Latitude: 32.1037 Longitude: 36.1560 (http://latitude.to/articles-by-country/jo/jordan/7450/dawsons-field-hijackings)

[Flash2001]

Length of abandoned runway at coordinates given is <3000'. Bit short for a 747 I would've thought.

[Herod]

707, DC8, VC10. The 747 went to Cairo I think.

[DaveReidUK]

Length of abandoned runway at coordinates given is <3000'. Bit short for a 747 I would've thought.

Not that there were any 747s involved in the Jordan hijacks, but that runway certainly doesn't sound like the TWA captain's 30,000' TORA.

No sign of any salt flats, either. It's pretty clear that those coordinates have nothing to do with Dawson's Field per the journo's report.

[Flash2001]

Memory rapidly fading...

[Harry Wayfarers]

The B747 went to Cairo because Dawson's runway was too short

[DaveReidUK]

The B747 went to Cairo because Dawson's runway was too short

The Pan Am captain persuaded the hijackers that the field could not accommodate a 747.

Whether that was because of the supposed runway length or its ability to support the weight of a 747 isn't clear.

[DaveReidUK]

Eyewitness report from passenger on TW741:

"September 7: Captive in Jordan
Night was over soon, as dawn arrived at about 4:45 AM. The sun rose on an incredible scene: In a vast, silent void, on a stretch of parched, yellow-brown sand with an occasional pack of camels meandering by, sat two giant airplanes. Ours and Swiss Air 100, which terrorists had hijacked the same day as it flew from Zurich en route to New York. They had landed on the desert floor in the Zarqa province, about thirty-five miles northeast of Amman. The landing strip - mud flats, actually, that harden and crack under the searing summer sun - was known to outsiders as Dawson Field and to local Arabs as Ga Khanna. The PFLP now called it Matar ath-Thawra, Revolution Airport."

Google Maps (https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.092,36.419&q=32.092,36.419&hl=en&t=h&z=11)

"Qa' Khanna (Qa' Hanna):

This is a seasonal playa lake elongated from NW-SE and covering 3,000 hectares, located 60 km ENE of Amman. It is some 15 km long and up to 5 km wide, with muddy sediments forming mudflats and some nearby saline marshes."

[barry lloyd]

Not that there were any 747s involved in the Jordan hijacks, but that runway certainly doesn't sound like the TWA captain's 30,000' TORA.

No sign of any salt flats, either. It's pretty clear that those coordinates have nothing to do with Dawson's Field per the journo's report.

As one who has travelled quite widely in Jordan, I would concur regarding the salt flats. There is King Hussein Air Base to the north-east of Amman, which is certainly in a flat area, but is a significant distance from the capital and in any case, it's been an air base since the end of WWII.

As to Dawson's Field, we should remember that in the 1960's it would have appeared to be very remote and there would have been plenty of unused flat land around the airfield. The hijacked aircraft would presumably have taxied some distance from where they had landed and since the land is flat and dry in that area it may have given the impression of salt flats.

However, there is perhaps another possibility. The Muwaffaq Salti Air Base/Al Azraq is not far from Dawson's Field and within the Zarqa Governorate. The picture which Dave has posted shows no signs of a conventional runway and the airbase only came into use in the 1970s. From Google Earth, it appears to be flat and unobstructed. Dawson's Field would have been the nearest known airfield and perhaps used as a reference, rather than a landing area.

The co-ordinates for Dawson's Field are 32-06-13 N 36-09-21 E
Al Azraq is 31-50-03 N 036-47-14 E

Just a thought...

[Bergerie1]

BOAC VC10 leaving Beirut for Dawson's Field:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adBncB2FIOk

The aircraft being blown up at Dawson's Field:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBS2LTLv_tU

John Ferrugio who saved a lot of lives when the Pan Am 747 was hijacked to Cairo and blown up:-
John Ferruggio of Milton, hero of 1970 Pan Am hijacking, dies at 84 - The Boston Globe (http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2010/06/22/john_ferruggio_of_milton_hero_of_1970_pan_am_hijacking_dies_ at_84/)

[Jhieminga]

Bergerie1, can you point out where the BOAC VC10 is in that first clip? I scrolled through it but couldn't find it. It appears to be mostly about a 727 hijack from 1985.

[Bergerie1]

BOAC VC10 Beirut to Dawson's Field (sorry - I posted the wrong video before!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU11-_sNO1w

[DaveReidUK]

Of course, the second part of the puzzle remains unsolved - who was the original Dawson, after whom the field was named ?

[Herod]

Air Chief Marshal Walter Lloyd Dawson. (check Wiki)

"He died on 10 June 1994.[2] Dawson's Field in Jordan, where the Dawson's Field hijackings took place, is named after him"

He was on the staff RAF Middle East during WWII, and was the last RAF commander in Palestine

[Jhieminga]

BOAC VC10 Beirut to Dawson's Field (sorry - I posted the wrong video before!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU11-_sNO1w

Many thanks! I have added it to my site (here: Hijackings (http://www.vc10.net/History/Hijackings.html#G-ASGN_1970)).

[rog747]

Not that there were any 747s involved in the Jordan hijacks, but that runway certainly doesn't sound like the TWA captain's 30,000' TORA.

No sign of any salt flats, either. It's pretty clear that those coordinates have nothing to do with Dawson's Field per the journo's report.

pan am 93 a 747 was hijacked by 2 guys who failed to get on the el al 707 (Lela Khaled LHR) and it went to Cairo and was blown up

https://jpbtransconsulting.com/2013/08/31/the-pan-am-series-part-three-the-cairo-hijacking/

[DaveReidUK]

pan am 93 a 747 was hijacked by 2 guys who failed to get on the el al 707 (Lela Khaled LHR) and it went to Cairo and was blown up

Yes, that's the one mentioned in posts #22 and #23.

[sandringham1]

Wasn't the B707 outer wing reused by BOAC on their B707 that lost the outer wing following an engine fire during a run up?

No, the 707-436 that needed a wing section was G-APFP and it came from a TWA aircraft that had been W/O somewhere else.
Previously discussed here http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/311275-ba712-boac-b707-crash-heathrow-1968-a.html see post #34

Richard

[ZFT]

No, the 707-436 that needed a wing section was G-APFP and it came from a TWA aircraft that had been W/O somewhere else.
Previously discussed here http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/311275-ba712-boac-b707-crash-heathrow-1968-a.html see post #34

Richard
Thanks for putting me right. Was a long time ago.

[Four Wings]

I have always been puzzled by the references to Dawson's Filed which I suspect may have been a bit of old RAF slang picked up by a journalist.
From late 1945 to Jan 1947 my father commanded the British Army transport base at Mafraq. My mother, younger brother and I joined him there from England in March 1946, staying there until the base was closed and we were posted to Jerusalem at the end of Jan 1947.
I knew the area very well as a 10 year old with nothing to do but hitch lifts on Army trucks and go riding on a couple of retired police horses we had.
Although RAF Mafraq is recorded as existing since 1931 there were no RAF there then. I think there was a landing strip because occasionally a BOAC Dragon Rpaide called in with supplies for the oil company pumping station at H5 (Mafraq is on the old Haifa pipeline).
I have always assumed the hijacked aircraft were landed on the salt flats. These were vast - we used to cross them on the way to picnics at the al Azraq oasis. I remember once we came across a squadron of Spitfires that had landed on the salt flats as part of a desert exercise. Plenty of room for a fleet of VC10s!
Wikipedia refers to the strip at Zerqa as Dawson's Field, I think wrongly.
The base the RAF built around 1951 was completely new and became the later Jordanian Air Force base. The hijackers would not have landed there.
I called in at Mafraq briefly in 1973 on my way from Damascus to Amman, when the old British base where I had lived was still unchanged, and again in 2010 when everything had been completely built over. I seem to remember the RJAF base main gate has a Hunter as guard plane.