“Hijacking Flight 601”: The story behind the Netflix series, told by the author of the book that inspired it | Wind worn | Massimo De Rico | Christian Tappan Colombia | Air hijackings | Streaming | Skip – Enter

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To crown what appeared to be an ordinary trip to Colombia, this Wednesday, April 10, Italian journalist Massimo Di Rico will see how streaming giant Netflix will screen “Hijacking of Flight 601″, inspired by the six-episode miniseries, “The Condemned of the Air” (Libros del Go), his author’s book, when he came to the South American country for the first time in 2010, the experience that a dessert would mark his life.

An expert on the Middle East, the native of the Italian province of Lugo was initially interested in the collective imagination associated with hijackings by Palestinian guerrillas, Shiites and others. Amid long hours spent researching the history of Arab settlement in Barranquilla, he 'saw the light': Colombia has its own and unique history of air piracy.

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“I was surprised at first because I thought I knew a lot about the hijacking issue, but I realized that on the one hand, there wasn't much information about this phenomenon in Latin America, and on the other hand, there was regional historiography. Leaving aside one specific detail,” De Rico said in an interview for El Comercio's skip introduction. says

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A 'SEAL' for non-violent kidnappings

Reviewing thousands of hijackings carried out in the 60s and 70s, De Rico highlights the low level of violence used by 'hijackers' in this part of the hemisphere. No matter how you look at it, the hijacking is a traumatic event, but the journalist didn't find mass executions, explosions, much less attacks like the one at the Twin Towers in 2001.

Flight 601 Hijacking Official Netflix Trailer

“The first cases with little intervention by the authorities were important. The commanders (pilots) were very permissive, and the idea spread that this was just a trip to Cuba and nothing would happen to us, which actually happened in a large number of cases. What's more, the 5 thousand who 'traveled' to the island because of heart attacks after the hijacking. I believe the only passenger who died out of the crowd died,” recounts the now Barcelona-based academic.

What dangerous characters take on a plane that, from one moment to the next, prompts the pilot to change course and take Fidel Castro and company to Cuba? Precisely, the political factor comes into play. Especially in mid-20th century Latin America.

While the initial reaction was to label the hijackers 'Castro' and 'communists', De Rico believes that many of those who committed these acts were caught in the middle of an ideological struggle in Latin America. Cold War. We remember that Fidel Castro would seize power in 1959 after ousting Batista. Since then, neighboring countries have had to establish a position: for or against that regime. And the siege did its thing.

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“(Some) saw the island as a utopian place, ripe for change, to wrest power from the traditional and conservative elites associated with the United States, and in many cases clearly wanted to retain power (…). Cuba was demonized by some conservative media and wanted to change their lives, “Many of us who have missed the train of progress by a little bit, are unaware of the reality and don't know what we are going to find when we get there,” he adds.Tell Rico.

Sam's plane is a central element

Before the legendary Christian Tappan stepped into the shoes of Commander Lucena, the story of how it came to be “Hijacking of Flight 601″ also deserves a mention. On May 30, 1973, two masked men hijacked a Lockheed Electra HK-1274 of SAM Airlines flying between Pereira and Medellin. It was only after this hijacking, which lasted 60 hours and 15 minutes, that De Rico decided to study the history of hijackings in the Latin American region.

“I didn't want it to be a 'brick' of pure hijacking data, so I started thinking about doing something more entertaining. Because I know it's surreal to talk about entertainment when analyzing airplane hijackings, but I found it fun because, as you read in the book, , there weren't many episodes of violence. So he had information about kidnappings, plus he had a plane flying around Latin America. So I thought I'd add a little more culture and politics to put readers in a time that was very different from today.

“Can be read inCurse of the wind” (KO Books), the SAM Airline flight played a specific flight route, crossing not only Colombian cities but also Latin American countries. Tenderhooks pray to God that the pirates don't decide to force the pilots to land at their respective airports.

Now, how different was the world in the sixties, if today they won't let us get on a plane with our tablets, can they do it with knives and machine guns back then? The specialties of a young aviation industry like Latin American are at work here. It's not just metal detectors, trained dogs and massive security measures.

“Commercial aviation at this time is the vanguard of 'progress,' and it is fear and, therefore, a collapse of this humanity that moves forward almost without looking back, mainly for an elite, and therefore, a decline.” According to Di Rico, you can board 10 minutes early at that time. , “It's like a bus,” a far cry from the idea of ​​queuing up four hours in advance to search. “What seems normal to us today,” he says.

From Book to Series: Expectations and Reality

Massimo knows that transferring his story to the screen means inevitable changes, but he assures himself that he's not worried. “I gave them carte blanche in the contract so they could dramatize it the way they wanted. “It's not my interest that they reflect the real story, because I know that everything that happened back then was too strange, too complicated and too surreal to tell.”

On the path he traveledCurse of the wind“Until It Changes”Hijacking of Flight 601″, Di Rico's book transcends a key dimension: the podcast. As the Italian admits, interviewing those characters he sought out for his book a decade ago was a very emotional experience. The decision, published on the Radio Ambulant platform on April 20, 2021, convinced the Colombian producers, who would then contact him in search of his story. Netflix will do the rest.

“I see this as something circular. My intention was to write a book or at least an article, but the final work is heavily influenced by the consumption of my true crime series of Podcasts (…), therefore, the most important input for 'The Condemned of the Air' came from other forms of media. And to write it, I immersed myself in many Latin American journals,” says the Italian, citing books like “Operation Massacre” and “The Crimes of Moises Ville” by Rodolfo Walsh and Javier Sinai, respectively, as great references.

This Wednesday, April 10″601 Smuggling by air″ Released on Netflix, it will be a reason to enjoy the way the stories are told in different formats, without distinguishing the differences between the miniseries and Di Ricco’s book. On the one hand, a journalist who sees a criminal outline a portrait of a turbulent Latin American era, and on the other, the chance to see Christian Tappan again – Gonzalo Gaviria, remembered in that Latin American TV classic. “Way of Evil”—he shines at what he does best: acting.