About this episode

Mimi Nichter shares her harrowing experience of being a hostage during a hijacking and her journey to healing and resilience.

What would you do if your commercial flight was hijacked by armed terrorists and you didn't know if you'd ever see your family again? In this gripping episode of Women Road Warriors , Shelley Johnson and Kathy Tuccaro welcome Mimi Nichter , award-winning anthropologist, professor emerita, and author of Hostage: A Memoir of Terrorism, Trauma, and Resilience . At just 20 years old, Mimi boarded what she believed would be a routine flight home from Israel in 1970. Instead, her plane was hijacked by armed militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and diverted to the Jordanian desert, where she endured nearly a month as a hostage in sweltering heat, surrounded by armed militants and the uncertainty of whether she would ever make it home alive. The hijacking of TWA Flight 741 became one of the defining acts of modern international terrorism and a pivotal moment in aviation history that changed air travel forever. But this conversation goes far beyond a remarkable survival story. Mimi reveals how the emotional wounds of terrorism lingered for decades, why she remained silent for more than 50 years, and what finally gave her the courage to confront her trauma and…

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