Tbilisi hijacking incident
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The Tbilisi hijacking incident refers to the tragic and controversial hijacking crisis at Tbilisi Airport (TBS), Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR on 18-19 November 1983.
On November 18, 1983, nine young hijackers, children of the Georgian intellectual elite, tried to hijack a Tu-134A aircraft (Aeroflot) with the purpose of fleeing from the Soviet Union. There were 57 passengers and 7 crewmembers on board. On the following day, security forces (the so-called Alpha Group) stormed the aircraft. Three crewmembers, two passengers and three hijackers were killed and the aircraft received 63 bullet holes during the storm. The 5 hijackers were arrested.
The head of the Georgian Communist Party Eduard Shevardnadze condemned the offenders and they received capital punishment. Their confessor, the Orthodox priest Theodore Chikhladze was also executed despite being not concerned in the hijacking plan. Their families had been under intolerable pressure for years.
The hijackers of 1983 have been regarded as civil heroes by many Georgians, claiming that they were well-educated and intelligent young people who could not resign themselves to unfairness of the Soviet reality and dreamed to live in a free country. Many claims have been made that Eduard Shevardnadze demanded the death penalty for the hijackers to strengthen his positions in the Communist elite and to show his loyalty to the Kremlin.
In 2001, a young Georgian producer of the Marjanishvili State Theatre, Dato Doiashvili, decided to make a performance of the 1983 events. However, the theatre administration didn't accept the screenplay of the writer David Turashvili. The latter stated Shevardnadze was reluctant to recall old memories. Georgian human right organizations claimed censorship in Georgia was still functional. The performance “The Jeans Generation” was staged, however, at the private Free Theatre (in Georgian: tavisupali teatri) and gained a conspicuous popularity in Georgia.
