William Madison “Bud” Thomas was born on June 27, 1939 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He was the second of three children born to Clyde S. “Sonny” Thomas and Lillian Ladd Thomas. He grew up in Trigg County, Kentucky and graduated from Trigg County High School.
After graduation from high school He enrolled in Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee and subsequently graduated from Vanderbilt with a degree in civil engineering. After graduation he served with the United States Marine Corps as a Captain in the Far East. After leaving the Marine Corps, he became a pilot with Pan American World Airways.
On September 20, 1969, Bud married Roxanne Reeder Peterson, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. B. D Peterson of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Roxanne was a graduate of the University of Miami and was a stewardess with Pan American World Airways. Bud and Roxanne were living in Fairfax, Virginia when their two children were born, a daughter Nicole who was born in 1971 and a son Matthew who was born in 1974. Later, the Thomas family established a home in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
In September of 1986, Bud was thrust into the national limelight when he became involved in an international airline hijacking incident. On Thursday, September 5, Bud was a co-pilot on Pan American flight 73 that had originated in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. The flight was scheduled to stop in Karachi, Pakistan, Frankfurt, Germany and end in New York City. The plane had just landed in Karachi when four armed Arab gunmen sped on to the tarmac and entered the Boeing 747 firing shots into the air.
Thomas and two other members of the cockpit crew were alerted by a flight attendant of what was happening in the back of the plane. They made the decision to escape the plane by climbing through a hatch in the roof of the cockpit and sliding down a cable. The cable was an escape device that reels out at a steady speed. The cockpit is roughly three stories high. The crew made the decision to escape because they believed that by rendering the craft inoperable, the passengers would be better off. As a result of their actions, the flight was not able to take off. “Keep the plane on the ground” is the first rule on how to handle an airline hijacking according to airline policy.
The 379 passengers and crew aboard were held hostage as the hijackers demanded a pilot to fly them to Cyprus. To enforce their demand, the hijackers executed an American citizen. Efforts by the hijackers to identify other Americans were frustrated by flight attendants who hid the passports of the remaining American passengers. The hijackers also threatened to blow up the aircraft with all passengers on board. After a grueling 16-hour standoff, the plane’s onboard power supply was exhausted. Shortly thereafter, the plane went dark and the hijackers, thinking that the plane was being assaulted by security forces, fired on the hostages. Twenty-one hostages were killed, and scores were injured. The assault ended when the gunmen ran out of ammunition, and members of the flight crew reentered the aircraft to aid the wounded all four hijackers were eventually apprehended by Pakistani police and imprisoned.
Captain William Madison Thomas died in Hopkinsville, Kentucky on July 22, 1996 a little less than ten years after the Flight 73 hijacking incident. He was buried in the Kentucky Veterans Cemetery West in Hopkinsville.
The Boeing 747 that was hijacked on September 5, 1986
LINEAGE: (William Madison Thomas is the son of Clyde S. “Sonny” and Mary Lillian Ladd Thomas, grandson of Bluford Ira and Alice Lula Vinson Thomas and great-grandson of William Bridges and Nancy Jane Rogers Thomas. William Bridges Thomas was the first child of Starkie and Mary Bridges Thomas. Starkie was the fourth child of James and Mary Standley Thomas. Mary was the seventh child of Drury and Charity Cohoon Bridges.)
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