Flight 714 to Sydney

Flight 714 to Sydney (Vol 714 pour Sydney)
Cover of the earlier English edition under the shorter title
Date	1968
Series	The Adventures of Tintin
Publisher	Casterman
Creative team
Creator	Hergé
Original publication
Published in	Tintin magazine
Issues	836 – 997
Date of publication	27 September 1966 – 28 November 1967
Language	French
Translation
Publisher	Methuen
Date	1968
Translator	Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper Michael Turner
Chronology
Preceded by	The Castafiore Emerald (1963)
Followed by	Tintin and the Picaros (1976)

Flight 714 to Sydney (French: Vol 714 pour Sydney; originally published in English as Flight 714) is the twenty-second volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The title refers to a flight that Tintin and his friends fail to catch, as they become embroiled in a plot to kidnap an eccentric millionaire from a supersonic business jet on an Indonesian island. This album, first published in 1968, is unusual in the Tintin series for its science fiction and paranormal influences. The central mystery is essentially left unresolved.

On a refueling stop in Jakarta on their way to Sydney, Tintin, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus chance upon their friend Skut (introduced in The Red Sea Sharks), now personal pilot for aircraft industrialist and eccentric millionaire Laszlo Carreidas. Tintin and his friends join the millionaire on his prototype private jet, the Carreidas 165, crewed by Skut, co-pilot Hans Boehm, navigator Paolo Colombani, and steward Gino. En route, Carreidas' secretary Spalding, Boehm, and Colombani hijack the plane and bring it to a deserted volcanic island in the Lesser Sunda Islands, where the aircraft makes a rough landing on a makeshift runway made of interlocking metal strips, with a nylon barrier at the end. While disembarking from the plane, Snowy bolts from Tintin's arms, runs off into the jungle under fire by gunmen, and is apparently killed. The mastermind of the plot then reveals himself as Rastapopoulos, intent on seizing Carreidas' fortune. Captain Haddock's corrupt ex-shipmate, Allan, is present as Rastapopoulos's henchman, and Sondonesians have been hired as mercenaries.