22. Flight 714 (1968)

22. Flight 714 (1968)

Flight 714, first published in 1968, is the twenty-second of The Adventures of Tintin. Its original French title is Vol 714 pour Sydney ("Flight 714 to Sydney").

Tintin, Captain Haddock and Calculus are on their way to Sydney for an international conference on space exploration. While their flight makes a refueling stop in Jakarta's Kemayoran Airport, they unexpectedly meet their old friend Piotr Skut (see The Red Sea Sharks for back story), who is now the chief pilot for eccentric millionaire Laszlo Carreidas. A short time earlier, the Captain had erroneously taken the somewhat disheveled Carreidas for a tramp and surreptitiously slipped him a five-dollar bill (which later is taken by the oblivious Professor Calculus, making the millionaire laugh for the first time in years). When introduced to Carreidas, the Captain inadvertently shakes the hand of the millionaire's secretary, the tall, aloof Spalding.

Unable to politely refuse Carreidas's offer of a ride on his prototype private jet, Tintin and his friends join the millionaire on the way to Sydney. Carreidas plays Battleship with the Captain, defeating him repeatedly by cheating with a hidden closed-circuit television camera and monitor. Unbeknownst to Carreidas and the others, Spalding and two of the pilots, Boehm and Colombani, have been recruited to hijack the plane and bring it to a deserted island called Pulau-Pulau Bompa in the Celebes Sea. Skut is not involved in the plot, and so he becomes a prisoner too. After a rough landing, our friends are escorted out of the plane, and a terrified Snowy breaks out of Tintin's arms and runs off. Armed guards shoot at him, and a mortified Tintin takes him for dead.

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