Terrorist attack at Vienna International Airport

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The terrorist attack on the El-Al counter at Vienna International Airport took place on December 27, 1985 when three terrorists with hand grenades and assault rifles attacked a queue of passengers waiting to be processed for an El-Al flight. Four people were killed and 39 others injured in the process and in the subsequent persecution of the perpetrators.

procedure

At around 9 a.m. on Friday, December 27, 1985, three Palestinian terrorists took the stairs on the east side of the airport building to the departure lounge and rolled one smoke grenade and three hand grenades into a line of passengers who were at counters three and four at the check-in desk El-Al-Fluges waited. Then they opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles. Police precinct inspector Peter Pruckner from the Hundestaffel was the first to return fire on the terrorists from a balustrade above the counter level and was assisted by a colleague shortly afterwards. The shots also alerted the two Israeli security officers at the El-Al counter, who also set fire to the attackers and thus prevented the terrorists from entering the hall. In the meantime, Austrian detectives had also intervened in the battle. A total of almost 200 shots were fired. The Austrian Magister Ekhart Karner and the Israeli Elias Jana were killed. 39 people were injured, including 23 Austrians. The theoretical physicist and then CERN Council President Wolfgang Kummer was among the injured . On January 22nd, 1986, the 26-year-old teacher Elisabeth Kriegler succumbed to the injuries she had suffered from the splinter of a hand grenade.

Then the attackers robbed a car in front of the airport building and fled. They were arrested by the police near Fischamend on the Preßburger Bundesstrasse . The terrorist Abdel Aziz Merzoughi died in a subsequent exchange of fire. The other two (Mongi Ben Abdollah Saadaoui and Tawfik Ben Ahmed Chaovali ) were arrested, seriously injured, and taken to the Vienna General Hospital . There you committed to the Fatah splinter group Abu Nidals ("Fatah - Revolutionary Council").

Flight operations in Schwechat resumed shortly after 11.00 a.m. Both landings and take-offs were carried out. The airport building was open to passengers under strict security precautions. At departure, delays were expected until around 1 p.m. At lunchtime, the airport and the surrounding area were searched for traces and possible perpetrators of the attack. At the same time, a second terrorist group carried out a similar attack at Rome Fiumicino airport , in which 16 people died and dozen were injured.

Reactions and consequences

In a telephone conversation, the Italian President Francesco Cossiga and Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger assured each other that they would work more closely together in the fight against terrorism at national and international level. At the same time, the two heads of state emphasized their determination to fight terrorism by all means, but not to allow such acts of terrorist violence to dissuade them from the previous peace policy.

The President of El Al-Luftfahrtgesellschaft Hargil traveled from Tel Aviv to Austria to personally express his own thanks to Interior Minister Karl Blecha and the thanks of the Israeli Minister of Transport Corfu for what the Israelis believed was the impressive work of the Austrian executive in the terrorist attack in Schwechat.

Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Rupf, head of the criminal police at Vienna-Schwechat Airport, said that security measures would be rigorously strengthened in the future.

The SPÖ member Paul Posch called for immediate action to tighten the entry regulations for people from certain countries.

On the occasion of this attack, the police at the airport set up the crane operations department , which is equipped for terrorist threats with special training and equipment, such as a Pandur wheeled armored vehicle .

In 1987 a Viennese court sentenced the terrorists to life imprisonment.

One of the two surviving assassins, Mongi Ben Abdollah Saadaoui, was released from Stein Prison in 2008 after 22 years in prison , was banned from entering Austria for ten years and was allowed to travel to Jordan .

In 2013, the victims of both this attack and those at Rome Fiumicino Airport were awarded by an American court compensation in the amount of one billion US dollars per person, which would have to be recovered from the states of Libya and Syria but rather as a theoretical requirement. This sum is one of the highest in the USA ever set by a court.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 18 billion euros compensation possible on ORF from February 8, 2013, accessed on February 8, 2013

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