The late 1960s and early '70s, before airports tightened security, were known as the “golden age of hijacking.”
Between 1967 and 1972, more than 300 attempts were made to hijack planes. Over 130 of those were in the U.S. – including 28-year-old Martin McNally’s 1972 skyjacking of American Airlines Flight 119 out of St. Louis.
St. Louis on the Air producer Danny Wicentowski first told McNally’s story in 2017 when he was a reporter for the Riverfront Times. His story inspired Eli Kooris and Joshua Shaffer’s first feature documentary film “American Skyjacker,” which premieres in St. Louis on Friday at Ronnie’s Cinema. It will also be released in select theaters in cities across the U.S.
“We came across ‘The Final Flight of Martin McNally,’ and read it with glee, and contacted Danny with hopes of adapting it into a script,” Kooris said.
That initial collaboration began in 2018. The story was first turned into the 2020 true-crime podcast hosted by Wicentowski. The new film condenses over six hours of podcast content into 98 minutes and adds dramatic reenactments.
Kooris said documentaries don’t typically show actors’ faces in reenactments, but this film breaks that norm.
“We made the decision very early on to embrace the re-creation. There seems to be some rule out there where you don't want to see faces, you only want to see chins and mouths and hands,” Kooris said. “And we threw that out the window in the second shot.”
The reenactments were filmed in just 13 days, and included a skydiving shot, renting out an entire prison and locating a rare Boeing 727 jet, Kooris said. The film also includes interviews with several people involved in the case, including McNally himself.
McNally’s crime resulted in decades in federal prison, and his multiple escape attempts, including a failed helicopter hijacking, led to the death of St. Louis resident Barbara Oswald and the brief imprisonment of her daughter Robyn.
“Both of them were scammed, and they were not criminally inclined. We were monsters for even bringing them into our life,” McNally said. “That's regrettable, no question about it.”
When McNally was released on parole in 2010, he moved to St. Louis where he regularly visited Barbara Oswald’s grave. He is now living in the suburbs of Detroit, where he grew up.
To hear more about the details of Martin McNally’s skyjacking, including interview clips from him, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube, or click the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Darrious Varner is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
