By ANDREA HURLEY
Staff Writer
When Jo Carol Trenfel Whitlock boarded Eastern Airlines Flight 925 on September 7, 1969, it was just like any other work day. But before the flight would end, a nightmare would begin which would last 28 years.

As senior stewardess on an early afternoon flight from New York to San Juan, Puerto Rico, she went through her normal routine - greeting passengers, checking seat belts and making sure the cockpit crew was settled in and comfortable. At 1:57 p.m., Whitlock, three crew members, six stewardesses and 86 passengers prepared for takeoff. What she didn't know was that among the passengers seated in coach was a man named Felix Rolando Peterson Coplin. And he was not just any passenger - he was a skyjacker and he had a gun.

Originally fron La Jolla, Calif., in 1968, Whitlock was a 24-year-old stewardess living in Chicago with just a bit more than three years of flying under her belt. It was a job she loved. Today she is retired from Eastern and living in a comfortable Fayette County home with her husband. In January of this year, she was surprised to receive a call from Agent Jim Stewart with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Apparently the FBI had been looking for her with some news.

"We've got your skyjacker," Stewart told her.

Suddenly Whitlock was transported back to a day she has never been able to forget.

As Eastern Flight 925 was flying over South Carolina, Peterson got up from his seat, flashed a gun at a stewardess and said, "I don't want to hurt anyone, Take me to the cockpit."

Trying not to alarm any of the passengers, he dropped the gun to his side. He was quietly escorted to the first class cabin and, on his request, the curtain between the cabins was drawn. The passengers in coach had no idea of the drama unfolding only a few feet away.

Once in the first class cabin, he approached Whitlock. As senior stewardess, she was the only crew member with access to the cockpit.

"He came up to me and stuck the gun in my ribs, telling me to take him to the cockpit. I unlocked the door. My heart was in my throat."

Whitlock tried to attract the attention of the cockpit crew.

"Captain," she managed to get out. But absorbed in his instruments, he didn't turn around. After what seemed like forever to Whitlock, one of the crew turned and saw the gun. She stepped inside with Peterson and he closed the door behind them.. As hands shot up into the air he said,"I want to go to Cuba."

The pilot immediately agreed to change course and reassured him.

"We'll do exactly what you want," he said. Peterson then advised Whitlock that he did not want her serving any of the passengers; she was to remain at his side throughout the flight.

"Only first class knew what was going on and we didn't tell anyone else. There were no announcements made of any kind," Whitlock said.

The cabin crew continued normal service to the passengers while she sat with Peterson.

"I kept thinking I was too young to die. I was terrified," she said.

Keeping her wits about her, she stayed by his side for the next two and one half hours.

"He was very definite about what he wanted and told me I was going to the most beautiful place in the world," she remembered. Once he settled down, he told her of his unhappiness with taxes in the United States. He had seen Fidel Castro in New York some time ago and expressed admiration for what he was trying to accomplish in Cuba.

"I called him sir and told him the pilots were taking him where he wanted to go and that he didn't have to point the gun at me. I smiled and he put the gun down at his right side."

Whitlock listened as Peterson talked about the government and even sympathized with him. He asked about her ethnic background and, in an attempt to further placate him, claimed to have some Spanish blood along with her Italian and Greek ancestry. He informed her he had been to Cuba before.

"He asked questions about where I had traveled and I told him. The fact that I was well traveled gave us something to talk about." He said little about himself and Whitlock insisted he showed no sign of violent behavior.

"I even had a cigarette with him."

Finally, as they reached Cuban airspace, Whitlock made the only announcement since the skyjacker had taken control. Saying they would be landing shortly, the passengers were prepared for landing as the plane made its descent into Jose Marti International Airport outside Havana. As the plane came to a halt, guards with weapons surrounded the aircraft. The passengers in coach looked out the windows and saw signs which read "Welcome to Jose Marti International Airport."

"You could hear them whispering to each other," said Whitlock. "They said, 'Oh my God, we're in Cuba'."

As the jetway was wheeled into place, Peterson prepared to leave the plane. He turned to Whitlock and said," Give me your hand." She knew he had taken a liking to her and was afraid he would force her to stay in Cuba with him. Instead he took the bullets from his gun, emptied them into her hand without a word and then rode away in a waiting van.

"I never saw him again."

Whitlock is still unsure why he gave her his bullets. "I think he just wanted me to know that he was in control; that he did hold the power."

As Peterson was driven away, Whitlock and the 95 others aboard Flight 925 were taken inside the airport. Before providing them with food, beer, cigars and cigarettes, the film was removed from their cameras.

At the time she wasn't sure why but now realizes it may have been a preventative measure in case anyone had taken photos of the skyjacker.

Now that the skyjacker was no longer a threat, the flight crew settled back to wait. Based on previous skyjackings the crew members realized they would not be leaving Havana until a ransom for the aircraft was secured by the Cubans.

About five hours and a $300,000 ransom later, Flight 925 left Jose Marti for Miami where it refueled and passengers continued on their way to San Juan. Instead of a day at the beach in Puerto Rico, Whitlock and the crew spent the day being interviewed by the FBI. They identified their unwelcome passenger from photographs; Whitlock turned over the bullets and it was out of their hands. Whitlock wouldn't hear from the FBI again until 1998.

As the FBI began to investigate this, along with 56 other skyjackings that year, Whitlock returned home to Chicago and resumed flying immediately. She was afraid if she didn't she might leave the skies completely. She continued to fly until the demise of Eastern, when she took her retirement. But thoughts of that September day were never far from her mind.

But the skyjacking victims were not the only ones going on with their lives. Peterson went on with his also. After spending two years in Cuba, he returned to his native Dominican Republic where he met and married a tourist vacationing on the island. In 1990 they relocated to Canada and, in 1994, he received his Canadian citizenship. Peterson and his wife had a daughter and until December 7, 1997, no one - not even his wife- knew of his secret past.

Peterson told his hometown newspaper - The Kingston Whig-Standard - that he led a normal life over the years and even kept his own name.

He was listed in the phone book, worked as a janitor in an elementary school and even crossed the border into the U.S. at least 20 or 30 times.

But when he crossed at Alexandria Bay, New York, to have his car alarm repaired that December 7, he was nabbed. Apparently noticed on a previous crossing, while searching a database his name came up on the 1969 warrant. The case against him was reopened.

That is when Jo Carol Trenfel Whitlock heard from the FBI. The agent who informed her of Peterson's arrest had only been 13 years old at the time of the skyjacking. Now he wanted her help to put away a man who had been living free for more than a quarter century.

In Canada, Peterson was dubbed the "gentleman janitor" and his wife professed his innocence. She asked the media to omit her daughter's first name from news reports to shield the child. Meanwhile, friends and co-workers refused to believe the man they knew could be guilty of such ac rime. And besides, many of them thought, it happened 28 years ago! The community rallied and a defense fund was set up.

Though ready and willing to travel to New York City to testify, Whitlock was spared the trip. Armed with positive identification and fingerprint evidence (both a stewardess and a member of the cockpit crew had hidden away drinking glasses used by Peterson) he plea bargained his way to a lesser charge - endangering the passengers and flight crew. He was sentenced to six and a half years in prison.

Though relieved that Peterson is now serving time for the nightmarish flight to Havana, Whitlock realizes that simple drug possession often carries a harsher penalty. The world has changed since 1969 and it may be hard for people to relate to the fear of being taken to Cuba at gunpoint.

There was no way of knowing what could be expected from Castro in the volatile environment of the Cold War; the frightened passengers were held at gunpoint and one false move could have brought an entirely differnt end to Flight 925. And in a statement which Whitlock feels makes light of a federal crime and a harrowing experience, Judge Deborah Batts of United States District Court said to Peterson following the pronouncement of his sentence,"I wish you well. I wish you a speedy return to your family."

So Jo Carol Trenfel Whitlock goes on with her life today - free to tell the story now that the case is finally closed. Packed away with the remnants of her years in the sky are Cuban cigars, a copy of Granma (the official paper of the Communist Party in Cuba) signed by the none other members of Flight 925's crew and the uneasy knowledge of how it feels to have a gun put to your ribs. Peterson is finally doing time but that's only fair because Whitlock has been doing it all along.

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