In the spring of 1971, in the midst of communism, Oradea was shaken by an incredible story: six young people hijacked a TAROM plane, threatened the crew and managed to land in Austria.
Adalbert Moka Archive The Truth
The group’s leader, Moka Adalbert, a man with one leg amputated, led the operation under gunfire, dreaming of freedom. Missing his wife would make him return to Romania, where he was sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to the Ebihorean.
Moka Adalbert’s life has been marked by dramatic events since adolescence. At 17, in a motorcycle accident, he hit a child and spent six months in prison. A year later, a tractor accident caused the amputation of his right leg from the knee down, forcing him to walk with a prosthesis. Shortly after, he fell in love with Irene, who, after two years of assiduous courtship, became his wife. But the desire to leave Romania did not leave him for a decade, and legal attempts had failed because of his criminal record.
At the age of 31, determined to cross the border illegally, Moka and some friends began to study the area of Orșova, but the border seemed impossible to cross. The idea of hijacking a plane came to him after he saw the news about the actions of some Palestinians.
The group first tried to hijack an Oradea-Bucharest plane in September 1970, but the desired seats were occupied and the Securitate appeared to be present. Other attempts were delayed due to accidents and weather conditions.
Hijacking day
On the morning of May 27, 1971, the group stole two rifles and hired a taxi driver for 100 lei. At Oradea airport, after shortening the pipes and preparing the weapons, the six went into action.
The passengers near the plane scattered in fear, when they saw the car coming towards them, directly towards the plane. Moka fired a few shots into the air and the people began to shout: “The terrorists! The terrorists!”.
The security guard next to the plane didn’t have time to remove the gun from the holster. One of them entered the cabin, but it was empty. Then they grabbed the co-pilot who was among the passengers, then the flight engineer and the telegraph operator, forcing them to board the plane at gunpoint.
In the general madness, the rest of the fugitives also managed to board the plane. The second pilot sat in the commander’s seat, who had managed to run towards the control tower. The plane, an IL-14, crashed heavily, with bursts of bullets fired at the plane’s wheels. The pilot did everything in his power not to reach Vienna, according to Adevărul.
Oradean Gheorghe Ciucur A was one of the 20 passengers on the hijacked plane in May 1971.
“I had to go to Bucharest for work, he remembers. When I saw what was happening, I wanted to get off. The lady next to me told me to stay calm, that it was just an exercise. When we realized that she wasn’t playing, we couldn’t get off. Some passengers fainted from fright. One lady turned completely gray!..”he recalls.
En route, the plane was intercepted by three Hungarian MIGs who summoned the pirates to surrender. Moka refused to put passengers at risk. After about three hours of flying along the Danube, the plane landed in Vienna, where the Austrian authorities offered them political asylum.
Arriving in custody, in the height of ecstasy, Moka said to the guard: “You have never imprisoned a happier man in this cell!”.
Missing his wife led him to return, being arrested in Yugoslavia and handed over to the Romanian authorities. The Bucharest court sentenced him to 23 years in prison, and after 12 years he was pardoned by Nicolae Ceaușescu. Moka remarried Irene. Other members of the group settled in Austria, Sweden, Germany and Canada.
“Some people hijack planes for money. We did it for an ounce of freedom,” Moka Adalbert said at the time.
“On the 27th of May, a group of six criminals, pursued by the criminal investigation bodies for committing the crimes of robbery, traffic accident, illegal possession of weapons, seizure of persons and death threats, trying to evade responsibility for the committed acts, by using firearms, entered the Oradea airport, attacked the crew of a TAROM passenger plane, who was going to make the Bucharest – Oradea flight, forcing him to take off and land at an airport in Austria. The Romanian state authorities demand the extradition of the criminals, the return of the plane, passengers and crew!”, reported Agerpres at the time.
The members of the group received 23 years in prison.
The head of the Security, Olteanu Nedelcu, served a year in prison, and the taxi driver Feher Andrei spent two months.
The hijacked plane was a Soviet Ilyushin 14, with two engines, a capacity of 24 passengers, a range of 1,800 km and a cruising speed of 300-350 km/h.
