Obituary: Danvers Pilot Who Retrieved Hijacked Jet

DANVERS, MA — A Danvers man who was one of the few TWA pilots who volunteered to retrieve the jet in Beirut in 1985 died on July 18. Richard Vaux, 85, died of congestive heart failure, according to the Boston Globe. In a memoir published last year, Vaux recalled how an armored personnel carrier stopped beside the plane after it was cleared for take off.

"It grinds to a stop by my window, and there’s a guy on the roof with a twin-barreled 40mm cannon pointed at my face," Vaux wrote in Dirty Work: The untold story of my secret mission to steal back TWA Flight 847 from Hezbollah. The gutted airplane had been abandoned after a hijacking and TWA negotiated for weeks for its return. Vaux only learned he had been chosen to retrieve the aircraft days before he was on the runway in Beirut.

Vaux's memoir recounts the mission, including how he defused the situation with the militia members on the tarmac by saluting and then proceeding with the takeoff. He also recounted his arrival in Beirut, where he was assigned a 14-year-old bodyguard.

For more on this story, see the Boston Globe