Lufthansa flight 592
| Lufthansa flight 592 | |
|---|---|
 The hijacked plane at Frankfurt Airport , 2003 |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | kidnapping |
| place |
 John F. Kennedy International Airport
|
| date | February 11, 1993 |
| Fatalities | 0 |
| Survivors | 104 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Airbus A310-300 |
| operator | Lufthansa |
| Mark | D-AIDM |
| Departure airport |
 Frankfurt am Main airport
|
| Destination airport |
 Addis Ababa Airport
|
| Passengers | 94 |
| crew | 10 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
On 11 February 1993 was one Airbus A310-300 on the Lufthansa Flight 592 , a scheduled flight of Lufthansa from Frankfurt via Cairo to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia , in the United States kidnapped. There were 94 passengers and ten crew members on board. The kidnapping ended in New York without injuring anyone.
Course of the kidnapping
About 35 minutes after taking off from Frankfurt's Rhein-Main Airport, the plane was smuggled into the plane by Nebiu Zewolde Demeke, a 20-year-old Ethiopian citizen who had been in Germany for six months, on the first leg to Cairo - as later found out, a starting pistol with blank cartridges was brought under his control and hijacked to the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He had boarded the plane in Frankfurt as a regular passenger; he had received the ticket from the German authorities after withdrawing his asylum application . He had hidden the dismantled starting pistol in his hat and reassembled it in the on-board toilet. During the kidnapping, he wore a black wool ski mask.
Flight captain Gerhard Goebel, who later received recognition for his calm and his negotiating skills, flew the Airbus A310-300 ( registration number : D-AIDM) with 94 passengers and ten crew members on the pretext that the machine had to fill up with more kerosene for the route to New York , first to Hannover-Langenhagen Airport . The German security forces then started the plane in the direction of New York after the kidnapper, who repeatedly threatened to shoot crew members and passengers, promised to face the local authorities upon arrival.
Demeke surrendered eleven hours after the kidnapping began and 14 minutes after landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport, after handing the pilot his pistol in exchange for his sunglasses and leaving his cap in the cockpit. All hostages were unharmed.
Demeke was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a New York federal district court in June 1996.
The kidnapper
Nebiu Zewolde Demeke (born September 24, 1972 in Egypt) grew up after his father, an economist, was imprisoned in Ethiopia as a political prisoner , with his sister and two brothers in Morocco , where he attended the American School in Tangier . At the time of the hijacking, his siblings had already been in the United States for a long time with student visas , where they were attending colleges and universities. In August 1992 Demeke came to Germany, where he initially applied for asylum , but withdrew the application in early February 1993 and then received a ticket from the German authorities for the flight to Addis Ababa. Investigative authorities in the United States reported that his motive for the kidnapping was that he wanted to see his siblings.
Flight route in recent years
The last Lufthansa flight 592 ran in 2013 and 2014 from Frankfurt am Main to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and partly to Asmara in Eritrea .
filming
"Escape to the USA" , documentary Welt (TV station) 2018
See also
Web links
- Stern : The almost forgotten story of an airplane hijacking , February 11, 2018
- Aircraft accident data and report in the Aviation Safety Network (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Edward F. Mickolus, Susan L. Simmons: Terrorism, 1992-1995: A Chronology of Events and a Selectively Annotated Bibliography . ABC-CLIO 1997. ISBN 0313304688 (Page 292)
- ↑ a b Los Angeles Times : 11-Hour Hijack Ends Without Injury in NY , February 12, 1993
- ^ The New York Times : Hijacker Sentenced to 20 Years as Judge Rejects Claim That Bias Made His Crime Justified , June 12, 1996
- ^ The Washington Post : Accused hijacker described as emotional youth who missed family , Feb. 13, 1993
- ↑ https://planefinder.net/data/flight/LH592
- ^ Escape to the USA (welt.de, July 31, 2018, accessed July 31, 208)