The Delta Force - Historical Connections

Historical Connections

• The hijacked flight in the movie bears many resemblances with the real-life hijack of TWA Flight 847 in 1985:
  • The route is Cairo-Athens-Rome.
  • Two terrorists took over the flight, the third one being arrested in Athens.
  • The flight was diverted to Beirut and Algiers.
  • The lead flight attendant (played in the movie by Hanna Schygulla) was German and was asked by a hijacker to single out the Jewish passengers on board. Also, the flight attendant was based partly on the real-life flight attendant Uli Derickson.
  • Upon landing, one of the hostages, United States Navy diver Robert Stethem, was murdered.
  • A dozen men join the hijackers.
  • The fictional airline in the movie, ATW (American Travelways), is an anagram of TWA (Trans World Airlines), however TWA flight 847 was operated using a Boeing 727 while ATW 282 in the movie was a Boeing 707-139(B) (Registration N778PA). Prior to filming in 1985, the aircraft had been operated by Israeli charter-operator Maof Air and was recently retired commercial service in December 1984. The aircraft was then leased to Golan-Globus Productions in late 1985 while in storage at Tel Aviv (just after the TWA-847 hijacking). Upon completion of the film, the aircraft was sold to Omega Air who in-turn sold it to the US Air Force to be parted out for use in the KC-135E. The aircraft was burned up by a welding accident while in storage at Davis-Monthan AFB in 1994.
• The hostage rescue operation was inspired by Operation Entebbe, which was conducted by Israeli commandos in 1976. It was the subject of another movie by Menahem Golan, Mivtsa Yonatan (released in English as Operation Thunderbolt), in 1977.
• The beginning of the film replicated Operation Eagle Claw, the aborted attempt to rescue American hostages held at the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1980.
• In his book Eric L. Haney claims that Delta Force was indeed dispatched to Algiers by President Ronald Reagan, but similar to the movie they never received the go-ahead to assault the plane. Delta was then to travel to Israel for a planned rescue of the hostages that had been removed from the plane, Operation Round Bottle, but this was cancelled while they were en route.

The motorcycle used in the film was a 1985 Suzuki SP600.