Auburn Calloway

Auburn Calloway was the hijacker of FedEx Flight 705 on April 7, 1994, now serving a determinate life sentence at the federal prison in Atwater, California.

Calloway had graduated from Stanford University and served as a United States Navy flier, where he became an expert in martial arts.

After leaving the military, he worked as a Federal Express flight engineer. However, he was emotionally unstable and worried about his financial situation. His initially promising career had yielded a string of disappointments, only able to find work as a flight engineer and having recently divorced. At the time he attempted the hijacking, he was scheduled to appear at a FedEx hearing, which would almost certainly result in his dismissal, after it was found on his résumé that he had been overstating his flight experience with the United States Navy.

He boarded the San José, California-bound aircraft, which was loaded with electronic equipment bound for Silicon Valley, intending to murder the flight crew with hammers, and was suspected of planning to use the aircraft for a kamikaze attack on FedEx Headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee. His reason for using hammers, as opposed to firearms, was so that the injuries inflicted would resemble those occurring in a plane crash — Calloway wanted to disguise the attack as an accident so that his family would benefit from his work's $2.5 million life insurance policy. As a last resort, he was also armed with a speargun, smuggled on board in a guitar case. Calloway unsuccessfully attempted to disable the Cockpit Voice Recorder (commonly known as black boxes) to cover his tracks. Calloway had intended to attempt the takeover while he was flying as one of the 3 crew members, but due to scheduling issues, he ended up as a passenger on the DC-10 crewed by Captain Dave Sanders, First Officer James Tucker, and Flight Engineer Andy Peterson. He therefore had to subdue three men, instead of the one man and one woman he otherwise would have faced. Calloway attacked just minutes after take-off. He brutally wounded the flight crew with hammers, and fractured the skulls of James Tucker and Andy Peterson. A lengthy struggle ensued with the flight engineer and captain. James Tucker, also an ex-Navy pilot, managed to control the plane as the 3 men struggled in the cockpit.

By means of extreme aerial maneuvers and physical efforts at restraint, the flight crew eventually succeeded in controlling Calloway, though all three crew members were severely injured and none would ever fly commercially again. Loaded with fuel and thus above maximum landing weight, Captain Dave Sanders nonetheless landed the jet safely at Memphis International Airport despite the dire circumstances. As the police gained access to the plane, by escape slide and ladder, they found the cockpit and interior covered with blood.

Calloway pleaded temporary insanity but was sentenced to life without parole on August 15, 1995 for attempted murder and attempted air piracy, which he is serving at the United States Penitentiary, Atwater federal prison in unincorporated Merced County, California, near Atwater. [http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2004-07-14-workplace-killings_x.htm]

External links

* [http://www.tailstrike.com/070494.htm Account of hijack including transcript of cockpit recordings from tailstrike.com]
* [http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServlet?Transaction=NameSearch&needingMoreList=false&LastName=Calloway&Middle=&FirstName=Auburn&Race=U&Sex=U&Age=&x=326&y=292 BOP Inmate Locator]