Air France flight 8969
| Air France flight 8969 | |
|---|---|
 The hijacked plane in 1982 |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Aircraft hijacking |
| place | Marseille |
| date | December 24, 1994 |
| Fatalities | 7 (4 hijackers, 3 passengers before departure) |
| Survivors | 229 |
| Injured | 25 (including 9 GIGN agents ) |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Airbus A300B2-1C |
| operator | Air France |
| Mark | F-GBEC |
| Passengers | 220 |
| crew | 12 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
Air France flight 8969 was an Air France flight that the Groupe Islamique Armé ( Armed Islamic Group , GIA) took control of on December 24, 1994.
The plan was to crash the plane over Paris .
course
Four men in Algerian presidential police uniforms boarded the plane at Algiers airport , which was supposed to take off for Orly at 11:15 a.m., and checked the passengers' travel documents. Having become suspicious of the unauthorized delay in departure, the Algerian military surrounded the aircraft. Thereupon the supposed police officers on board identified themselves as kidnappers; they were armed with Kalashnikovs , Uzis , hand grenades and dynamite .
In radio communications with the Algerian Interior Minister, the hostage-takers demanded that two politicians from the Islamic Salvation Front, which has been banned since 1992, be released from house arrest. They shot one of the passengers whom they identified as an Algerian police officer and a Vietnamese diplomat.
In the meantime, France's Foreign Minister Juppé had set up a crisis team. Because the Algerian government refused to let the French military into the country, members of the special unit GIGN flew to Palma de Mallorca Airport instead .
In the course of the following day, the hostage-takers released a number of passengers, mostly mothers with young children and the seriously ill. They demanded that the plane be made ready for takeoff; after the Algerian authorities refused to do so, the kidnappers shot another passenger, a cook from the French embassy.
Under pressure from France's Prime Minister Balladur , Algeria's President Zéroual finally allowed the plane to take off 39 hours after the hostage-taking began. Since the auxiliary power unit was running the entire time , the Airbus no longer had enough fuel to reach its original destination Paris. Instead, the plane headed for Marseille Airport , where it was to be refueled. The GIGN unit, initially ordered to Mallorca, had already flown to Marseille and was trying to storm the hijacked aircraft. After it landed at 3:33 a.m., the French authorities directed it to a remote area of the airport. The kidnappers asked for 27 tons of fuel, although ten tons would have been enough for the route to Paris.
The French authorities had meanwhile received information that the machine should fall as a flying bomb on Paris. They delayed the onward flight and in the evening had the aircraft stormed by 30 members of GIGN. In the course of a 20-minute gun battle, they killed the four kidnappers. Eight GIGN gendarmes were injured, some seriously, some passengers suffered minor injuries, and the captain was shot on his elbow and thigh. The Airbus was so badly damaged that it had to be decommissioned.
Others
An episode of the 3rd season in the series Zero Hour , the French film The Assault and the Canadian series Mayday - Alarm im Cockpit (2nd season, episode 3) retell the events.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b episode "The Killing Machine" ( Memento from February 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) in the series Mayday - Alarm im Cockpit
- ↑ Thomas, Sancton: Anatomy of a Hijack . In: TIME . June 24, 2001.
- ↑ Jet hijackers die as 170 are freed
- ^ The Paris Plot - Age of Terror - Part Three
- ^ Hijacking description
- ↑ imdb.com