Members of the Black Liberation Army took over the aircraft in flight using weapons smuggled on board, including a handgun hidden inside a Bible with its pages cut out to form a cavity.

Algerian authorities seized the aircraft and ransom which were returned to the U.S. with the crew hostages, but the hijackers were released after a few days.

[1] On the evening of Wednesday, August 2, 1972, at a hurried 10-minute news conference after the DC-8's completion of the 11,500 miles (18,500 km) trip in Atlanta, the captain said he realized the aircraft was being hijacked when he left the cockpit to go to the lavatory and noticed a man aiming a gun at a stewardess.

Kubal, and stewardesses Shirley Ann Morgan, Sherril Elsie Ross, Jamye Mays, and Leanne Marie Arnfield.

Prior to their arrest, they purportedly received lodging and training from Curiel Apparatus, along with attempting to obtain plastic surgery and fake identity documents in order to secretly enter the US.

According to Mikhael Ganouna, the producer of the film, George Brown was living in Paris but was not worried about being extradited because he had already served his sentence.

[11] Melvin McNair and his wife Jean were working at an orphanage in the French town of Caen, where reportedly they had turned their lives around completely.