Foreign News: Yugoslavs, Too …

Milivoje Arsenijevic, chief pilot of the Yugoslav airlines, eyed the horizon, paced the pavement of Zurich’s Kloten Airport, barked pointless orders to his ground crew and lived a lifetime for every minute that passed. Three years of patient planning and dreaming were at stake. The margin of error permitted one hour, the maximum time Pilot Arsenijevic could delay his plane’s flight back to Belgrade.

Pilot Arsenijevic didn’t want to go back. People with jobs like his, which put them in frequent touch with the West, are constantly under suspicion and scrutiny behind Marshal Tito’s private iron curtain. The sight of Belgrade’s big Glavnjaca Prison, which looms just opposite their apartment, and the night screams they sometimes heard from it, had made Mrs. Arsenijevic as chronically unhappy as her husband. Their friends, the Kavics, felt the same way. Kavic was a junior pilot. Three years ago, Chief Pilot Arsenijevic had seen a way out for all of them, if only the timing came out right.

A check of both pilots’ flight schedules last week revealed that the moment had come. Arsenijevic was down for his regular Belgrade-Zurich run on Tuesday. Kavic was set for an inside Yugoslavia run

from Ljubljana to Belgrade—on Wednesday. If both pilots’ wives and sons could be on Kavic’s plane, if the weather was right, if Kavic could alter his course and head for Zurich without attracting too much attention and if Arsenijevic could stall his take-off for one hour, then both pilots and their families could get to neutral Swiss soil. Chief Pilot Arsenijevic eyed his watch (30 minutes to go) and paced.

Five minutes later he heard the drone of engines. A big DC-3 circled the field once and landed. Pilot Arsenijevic jubilantly rushed up to embrace his wife and their son, Dragolub, 19.

Shots in the Ceiling. “We had to pull a real American gangster trick, only better,” said grinning Pilot Kavic after he had disembarked his own wife and son, 6. “It was just after we took off from Ljubljana. I asked the mechanic to go back to the luggage compartment to make sure all the baggage was safely tied down. Then I signaled young Dragolub to come to the pilot’s cabin. We locked the door. Then I pulled out my revolver and stuck it under the radio operator’s nose. He was surprised and indignant, but stopped sending. I ordered the co-pilot to change course and head toward Austria. Dragolub tied the radio operator to his seat.

“At this point, the mechanic, back in the luggage compartment, and the hostess noticed that something was wrong. They both rushed forward and began pounding against the door of the pilot’s cabin. I was afraid they might break their way in, so I fired three shots through the ceiling to scare them off. The passengers grew alarmed and got up from their seats. I ordered Co-Pilot Bjelanovic to do some mild acrobatics, to drive them back into their seats. Some were sick, too, I guess.

“When we got near Zurich, we untied the radio operator and ordered him to contact the Kloten Airport. We have no money—we brought nothing from Yugoslavia but our clothes and our freedom.” At first, said Pilot Arsenijevic, they had thought of seeking asylum in West Germany or Austria, but finally decided on Switzerland, “to spare the American occupation forces any possible complications with their new ally, Tito.”

Wherever They Pleased. Ten minutes after the landing, Zurich police told the pilots they were free to go wherever they pleased. Both hope to get airline jobs in the U.S. Yugoslavia’s local consul general put their 22 stranded passengers and crewmen in a hotel overnight, next day took them sightseeing in a bus and then loaded them back on a plane for Titoland.