Why electrician stole Grumman Tracker warplane from NATO base and flew to Libya aviation news – 9News

"I seem to be the only one who survived an adventure like that."

In March 1964, the Dutchman made world headlines when he stole a warplane from its NATO base in Malta and flew it to a desert airfield in Libya.

"I know how Sgt Meyer must have felt," Mr van Eijck said. "Because it's what I felt. It was the best thing ever. You're doing something that everyone says can't be done and it's all you."

Mr Van Eijck joined the Dutch military at 19 with hopes of becoming a flyer. But fearing he would never make the grade as an air force pilot, he decided on a backdoor route through the Dutch navy.

He entered the service as a trainee electrician, with the promise he could apply for the Navy's pilot training course.

Mr van Eijck's plans started well.

"I got selected for the pilot scheme and I loved it," he said.

But after he'd completed about 40 hours' flying time, a few indiscrete remarks cost him dearly.

During a party at his barracks in the Netherlands, Mr van Eijck's commanding officer invited him to speak candidly about the quality of the course. It was, he assured the 21 year old, an off-the-record chat.

Perhaps naively, he declared the twin-engine training aircraft were "crap".

The next day he was stunned when he was officially cautioned over his words.

Angry at the way he had been treated, Mr van Eijck wrote a critical remark about the training course on a blackboard.

This only made his situation worse: he was jailed by the military for a weekend. Then, after he broke out of his barracks and his absence was discovered, he was dismissed from the pilot's course.

Mr van Eijck had only one avenue left to save his flying dream an appeal to senior officers. But his superiors mistakenly handed him the wrong documents to complete. Months later he was informed he had not followed the correct procedure and the appeal process was exhausted.

The navy ruled he could no longer train as a pilot and he must serve the remaining six years as an electrician.

"I felt it just wasn't fair," he recalled.

When Mr van Eijck's appeal to be discharged from the navy failed, he formulated his plan to steal an aircraft.

But unlike Paul Meyer, who made his dash on the spur of the moment and under the influence of alcohol, the Dutchman planned carefully.

The plane he had his sights set on was the navy's Grumman Tracker propeller-driven anti-submarine plane.

Mr van Eijck found a handbook for the US-built aircraft and befriended pilots to learn about take-offs, instrument controls, the engine and other key information. "I told absolutely no one. If I had, it would not have worked," he said.

A two-month posting to a NATO base on the Mediterranean island of Malta in early 1964 proved the golden opportunity for Mr van Eijck.

While stealing a plane from the Netherlands risked flying close to air defences of Soviet-controlled East Germany at the height of the Cold War, Malta offered a less hazardous route south to North Africa.

Just days before he was due to return, he made his move the morning after an alcohol-fuelled leaving party at which he carefully abstained.

"I got up early and I borrowed a bike and biked to the runway."

Posing as an officer, Mr van Eijck told the guard he had to make an urgent flight and the gullible guard helped him open the hangar doors.

Moments later he was in the cockpit of the Grumman Tracker armed that morning with two torpedoes.

When he switched on the engine of the plane, the airfield's control tower radioed to ask what he was doing.

"I just ignored them. I didn't answer. I taxied and then I was gone."

Flying at about 1500 metres to conserve fuel, the deserter headed to Libya but had little idea where to land.

Looking back on the daring flight, Mr van Eijck said he felt elated.

"It was marvellous. I felt so powerful. I didn't care about the torpedoes."

After five and a half hours flying, he spotted a basic airstrip in the desert near Benghazi and made his landing.

"And this is where my luck crucially held. The first man I saw running out of a nearby hut was a Dutchman," Mr van Eijck recalled.

On his countryman's advice, he surrendered to Libyan officials and told them he fled Europe because he objected to liberal policies towards women's equality and homosexuality.

He was granted asylum in Libya where he says he was well treated.

Tense negotiations between Mr van Eijck and Dutch diplomats who wanted their warplane and their wannabe pilot back followed.

After initially snubbing official approaches, he agreed to a deal. He would return to the Netherlands and serve a one-year sentence for desertion. In return, he would be granted an honourable discharge from the military.

But the flying dream continued and when he left prison he qualified as a private pilot.

Looking back, Mr van Eijck has no regrets about risking all on his airborne escape.

"I got what I wanted. I wanted to get out of the bloody navy and I got that."

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Why electrician stole Grumman Tracker warplane from NATO base and flew to Libya aviation news - 9News