The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking is a 2013 narrative nonfiction book by the American author Brendan I. Koerner. It is a history of the "golden age" of aircraft hijacking in the United States from the first incident in May 1961 through January 1973. Hijackings during this period took place as often as once a week, with about 160 incidents in total (most were to Cuba). The book looks at the causes of the epidemic, some of the more famous ones and follows in-depth the story of the longest-distance skyjacking in American history, involving Willie Roger Holder and Catherine Marie Kerkow, a young couple who took control of Western Airlines Flight 701 on June 2, 1972, and ended up flying across the Atlantic Ocean to Algeria. It finally examines what brought the hijacking craze to an end in 1973.
"Book Discussion on The Skies Belong to Us". C-SPAN. 18 July 2013. Retrieved 12 April 2015. Brendan Koerner talked about his book, The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking, in which he chronicles the hijacking of Western Airlines flight 701 in 1972 by Vietnam War veteran Roger Holder and his girlfriend, Cathy Kerkow. The larger goal of the hijacking was to protest the Vietnam War, but Holder and Kerkow were also trying to free Angela Davis, who was on trial for murder at the time. Brendan Koerner spoke at the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta.
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