On 30 August 1978 , Hans Detlef Alexander Tiede and Ingrid Ruske , both East Germans , used a starting pistol ( not an actual gun ) to hijack a Polish passenger aircraft ( LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 ) from Gdańsk bound for East Berlin 's Schönefeld Airport and diverted it instead to the U.S. Air Force base at Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin . The West German government was very reluctant to prosecute Tiede and Ruske because of the West German policy of supporting the right of East Germans to flee oppression in the GDR . However , the NATO members did not want to lose the hijacking treaty on which they had worked for so long . Consequently , the case was prosecuted in the never-before-convened United States Court for Berlin
LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165
LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking
Judgment in Berlin