Uli Derickson

Age: 60

Summary: former TWA flight attendant who was honored for saving passengers' lives by confronting terrorist hijackers on June 14, 1985 when a pair of Lebanese gunman commandeered a TWA flight from Athens to Rome, where she took the lead in protecting the 152 passengers and crew members and was able to speak with one of them in German and occasionally calm him by singing a German ballad he requested despite that the two hijackers spoke almost no English, and who even faced the terrorists' threat to kill passengers when a ground crew in Algiers refused to refuel the plane without payment as it occurred to her to offer her Shell credit card, in which the ground crew charged about $5,500 for 6,000 gallons of fuel but the terrorists released many hostages including herself after about 36 hours, and who became the first woman to win the Silver Cross for Valor.

Cause of Death: Cancer

Born: August 8, 1944

Died: February 18, 2005

Location: Tucson, Arizona