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Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961
Background
On November 23rd, 1996, three hijackers stormed the cockpit of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 as it departed Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. The hijackers, who were identified by the Ethiopian state as two unemployed high-school graduates and a nurse with no ties to any organisation, demanded the Boeing 767 be flown to Australia. They claimed that there were 11 of them on-board, and that if the pilots did not comply they had a bomb that they would use to blow up the plane with 175 people on-board.
What Happened?
Despite the Captain consistently arguing that there was not enough fuel to go to Australia, the hijackers referred to an in-flight magazine that claimed the plane could fly for up to 11 hours. After attacking the First Officer and forcing him out of the cockpit, they forced the Captain to fly out over the Indian Ocean instead of following the coastline of Africa.
The plane eventually ran out of fuel while over the Comoros Islands. The Captain attempted to land at the airport there, however he was unable to make the airport and had to land in the sea. The plane hit a coral reef upon touching the water, causing the plane to roll and split into several pieces. 125 of the 175 people on-board were killed, including the hijackers, as the crash was captured on camera by tourists visiting a seaside resort at the time.
What's Significant Here?
Hijackings were nothing new to the Captain, in fact this was his third hijacking. In 1993, two couples hijacked his plane and forced him to fly to Nairobi. Two of the hijackers were former Presidential security who had escaped from prison. Furthermore, earlier in 1995, he was hijacked for a second time and diverted to Sudan by 5 men whose sole intention was to escape Ethiopia. Whilst the three men in this case could be considered to have done the same, the Captain disagrees. He says “they knew they wouldn't make it to Australia - they just wanted us to crash. They should be dead. The way they were talking they didn't want to live.”
At the time, most hijackings had political undertones to them. This case, where the true intent of the hijackers will never be fully known, is one where the perpetrators had no link to any political organisation nor were they known to authorities in Ethiopia.