Uriel Cohen
(26 February 1926 – 06 September 2015)
Uriel Cohen was born in Tel Aviv in 1926; his parents had immigrated from Russia to the British Mandate for Palestine. His father, Mosche, was the first Jewish doctor in the young city. Uriel Cohen worked as an aircraft mechanic in the Jewish Brigade, a military formation of the British Army, during World War II and had dreamt of becoming a pilot ever since. Before the founding of the State of Israel he gained combat experience in the Jewish underground organisation Etzel. As an employee of the airline El Al, Uriel Cohen finally managed to make his dream career come true. And it was through his work that he met his wife who had gone to Israel from Denmark to be a volunteer in a kibbutz.
Uriel Cohen was the captain of El Al Flight No. 435 from Tel Aviv to London on 10 February 1970. During the intermediate stopover in Munich, the crew remained in the airport building with the passengers at first. On leaving the transit hall, one of the perpetrators first threatened Cohen. The unarmed captain was not intimidated by the live hand grenade and gun. He defended himself and wrestled with the attacker. The grenade slipped from the perpetrator’s grasp and exploded, calling the Bavarian border police to the scene. In the gunfight between the terrorists and the police that ensued, the 43-year-old flight captain was injured: the hijack, however, was foiled. Uriel Cohen had to be treated in hospital. On his return to Israel, the father of five was honoured for his courageous intervention. In 1977, the government awarded him the “Decoration of Courage”, one of the highest awards of the State of Israel, in recognition of his “extraordinary act of bravery”. Despite this traumatic incident, he continued to work as an airline captain for El Al. He died in 2015 at the age of 90.
