# Successful hostage situation
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 2, 2003, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750 "2003-05-02T23:52:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Guybud5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guybud5)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2003, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750/1 "2003-05-02T23:52:05Z")
Has any hostage situation actually been successful for the perpetrator? It seems that there is an eternal chain of incidents in which a person or group of people are used as leverage to recieve money, facilitate prisoner releases, or other such goals.
My question: Has there ever been a situation in which the goals were actually achieved?
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### Author:  [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2003, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750/2 "2003-05-03T00:04:18Z")
One could argue that Iran was successful from 1979-1981 regarding its situation with the U.S.
The Shah died during the crisis, but the Iranians did get their U.S. assets unfrozen and the country didn’t face the same fate as Iraq did.
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### Author:  [@stockton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stockton)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2003, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750/3 "2003-05-03T01:14:55Z")
D.B. Cooper’s hijacking springs to mind. Look it up
😉
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### Author:  [@JamesCarroll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JamesCarroll)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2003, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750/4 "2003-05-03T01:19:21Z")
I suppose that “prisoners of war” is a hostage situation and when the two warring parties “trade” that its been successful for both.
But I know what you mean. Most hostage takers I’m aware of don’t fair well short term or long term.
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### Author:  [@stockton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stockton)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2003, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750/5 "2003-05-03T01:20:41Z")
Here’s another:
> [@](#):
>
> The other passengers were released after a two-day ordeal and the hijackers surrendered to Egyptian authorities, who put the alleged killers on a flight to the PLO’s headquarters in Tunisia.
> US Navy fighters forced the flight down in Sicily, under Italian jurisdiction. But the Italians, to the Americans’ dismay, allowed Abbas to flee to Yugoslavia before a US warrant for piracy and hostage-taking could be served.
from:
[http://www.smh.com.au/handheld/articles/2003/04/16/1050172654179.htm](http://www.smh.com.au/handheld/articles/2003/04/16/1050172654179.htm)
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### Author:  [@ooga\_booga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ooga_booga)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2003, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750/6 "2003-05-03T03:19:54Z")
While the world was busy being distracted by the impending doom of Y2K, there was the [successful hijacking of an Air India flight](http://www.emergency.com/1999/indair814.htm) to Afghanistan by five armed terrorists on Xmas Eve 1999. After holding 150+ passengers and crew hostage on the runway in Kandahar for 8 days, the Indian government partially caved in to the their demands and released several imprisoned Kashmiri militants.
The hostages were released, and subsequently both the terrorists and the freed militants (who had been brought to the airport to prove their release) ‘somehow’ managed to escape a half-hearted pursuit attempt by forces of the [then] ruling Talibaan - who were probably quite sympathetic to their cause in the first place.
I’d call that a pretty successful hostage situation.
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### Author:  [@ooga\_booga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ooga_booga)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2003, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750/7 "2003-05-03T06:19:49Z")
[minor hijack] I just read the article I linked to a little more closely:
> [@](#):
>
> “The resolute decisions taken by the Taliban officials in my opinion saved perhaps the lives of 155 innocent people,” he said. Richardson, who is a considered an expert on Afghanistan and published in numerous periodicals including the Washington Times, says that the **Taliban have not supported terrorism in the past making it unlikely for them to do it now. "The Afghans have never countenanced the export of terrorism,** not even during the war with the Soviets when they had both the opportunity and the justification to do so," he explained.
Talk about coming down on the wrong side of history.
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### Author:  [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2003, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750/8 "2003-05-03T08:04:28Z")
If Law & Order is to be believed, it’s not unheard of for the police/DA to arrest a relative of a suspect and then charge them, or threaten to charge them, with a crime they didn’t commit, or which they did commit and would otherwise have gone unprosecuted. This is done to induce the real perpetrator they’re after to turn himself in and confess in order to get the relative off the line.
If this indeed ever happens in real life (and even if not in North America, I can see it happening in more totalitarian regimes), then I think you could make the argument that this is a case of the police taking hostages. They’re essentially forcibly detaining an innocent victim and threatening them with death or long-term confinement; the victim then becomes a bargaining chip to get the state something it wants from the suspect or criminal organization that has an interest in the victim.
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### Author:  [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2003, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750/9 "2003-05-03T14:16:26Z")
During the Peloponnesian Wars in 425, Athens managed to capture 180 adult Spartan males alive on the island of Sphacteria. For a class society like Sparta that practiced eugenics (by killing imperfect children), had a low birthrate, and believed dishonr in battle affected a person even in the afterlife, this was a disaster.
They immediately asked for a truce, which lasted several years.
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### Author:  [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-hostage-situation/172750/10 "2003-05-03T14:17:57Z")
Tghat should’ve been 425 B.C. . . .