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Lufthansa Flight 181
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Lufthansa Flight 181, commonly known as The Landshut (after the city of Landshut in Bavaria) was a Lufthansa Boeing 737-230 Adv that was hijacked by four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as part of the events in the German Autumn of 1977. The aircraft was stormed by the GSG 9 in Mogadishu. The rescue operation was codenamed Feuerzauber (Fire Magic).
ctober 13, 1977, Lufthansa flight LH181, a Boeing 737 flying from Palma de Mallorca to Frankfurt with 91 passengers and crew, was hijacked by four militants belonging to "Commando Martyr Halime".
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Encyclopedia
Lufthansa Flight 181, commonly known as The Landshut (after the city of Landshut in Bavaria) was a Lufthansa Boeing 737-230 Adv that was hijacked by four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as part of the events in the German Autumn of 1977. The aircraft was stormed by the GSG 9 in Mogadishu. The rescue operation was codenamed Feuerzauber (Fire Magic).
Initial events
On October 13, 1977, Lufthansa flight LH181, a Boeing 737 flying from Palma de Mallorca to Frankfurt with 91 passengers and crew, was hijacked by four militants belonging to "Commando Martyr Halime". Their leader was Zohair Youssif Akache, who went by the alias "Captain Martyr Mahmud."
The aircraft changed course and landed in Rome for refueling. Just like the kidnappers of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, Mahmud demanded the release of eleven Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorists detained at the JVA Stuttgart-Stammheim prison, and US$15 million. The Landshut continued its journey, landing in Larnaca, Bahrain and Dubai, following a series of denied landing clearances in other airports across the Arabian Peninsula. On October 15, in Dubai, Captain Jürgen Schumann was able to radio the number of hijackers onboard. In an interview with journalists, this information was given away by Dubai's Sheijk Mohammed, then Minister of Defense. The hijackers learned about this - probably from the radio - with Mahmud threatening to kill Captain Schumann.
Flight 181 then flew to Salalah, in Oman, where it was denied landing, and changed course to Aden. As the main runway was blocked by vehicles and the plane was running low on fuel, Captain Schumann had no choice but to land on a sand strip nearby. In order to verify the condition of the landing gear following the rough landing, he was allowed to temporarily leave the plane. However, Schumann did not immediately return to the plane after the inspection, even after numerous attempts to recall him and a threat to blow up the plane on the ground. The reasons for this prolonged absence are unclear; however, some reports indicate that Schumann asked the Yemeni authorities to inhibit the continuation of the flight and to respond to the terrorists' demands. After this Schumann voluntarily returned to the airplane in face of his probable execution. Mahmud shot Schumann in the head, in the main passenger cabin, without giving him a chance to explain himself. The plane was refuelled and took off at 2 a.m. on the 17th, piloted by co-pilot Jürgen Vietor, with course towards the Somali capital of Mogadishu.
Operation Feuerzauber (Fire magic)
On October 17, at around 03:30 UTC, the Landshut landed in Mogadishu, Somalia, Schumann's body was thrown on the tarmac, and an ultimatum was set for the RAF prisoners to be released by 14:30 UTC. After pouring the duty free spirits over the hostages in preparation for destroying the plane, the hijackers were told that prisoners were to be released and that the transfer to Mogadishu required several more hours, they extended the deadline to the next morning, 00:30 UTC.
By order of German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, special envoy Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski had a team of GSG 9 commandos under the leadership of Ulrich Wegener assembled in Dubai. There is some controversy over whether members of the British SAS were directly involved in the operation. Some German reports indicate that the British soldiers were only observers whilst the television documentary "Special Forces Heroes: Terror in the Skies" describes the training of members of GSG 9 by and participation of two members of the SAS. Using a locally commandeered Boeing 737, the team resultantly planned an assault using 30 men split into six teams of five, who would approach from the rear in the plane's blind spot, using black-painted aluminium ladders to gain access to the aircraft through escape hatches under the fuselage and over the wings.
Having followed Flight 181 closely ever since it left Larnaca, following political negotiations with the Somali leader Siad Barré, the team landed in a white-painted Luftwaffe Boeing 707 at Mogadishu. After a Somali Ranger battalion had secured the airfield, the team stormed the airliner at 23:05 UTC (October 18 locally). The Somalis had distracted the hijackers for a period with the airport lights, they then lit a petrol tanker in front of the plane.
In the seven minute operation, of the four terrorists, Zohair Youssif Akache, Riza Abbasi, and Nadia Duaibes were killed while Souhaila Andrawes survived; a GSG 9 member and a flight attendant were injured. All the remaining 86 hostages were rescued and the majority were flown to Frankfurt a few hours later.
Aftermath
The rescue of the hostages was followed by suicides of RAF members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe at JVA Stuttgart-Stammheim. RAF member Irmgard Möller survived her suicide attempt. Hanns-Martin Schleyer, who had been kidnapped by the RAF prior to the hijacking, was killed when the RAF heard of the deaths of their comrades.
After the Landshut crisis, the German government stated that it would never again negotiate with terrorists. Helmut Schmidt, the German chancellor of the time, was widely praised for his decision to have the plane stormed.
Aircraft
The Landshut was a Boeing 737-230C (airframe 20254-230, registration D-ABCE), named after the city of Landshut in Bavaria. In 1985, it was sold by Lufthansa. In January 2008, the Brazilian carrier TAF Linhas Aéreas stopped service of the aircraft under the registration PT-MTB due to severe damage. The name Landshut is still used by Lufthansa today, currently on an Airbus A330.
In music
- The song '122 Hours of Fear' by The Screamers recorded in 1978 was inspired by the hijacking.
See also
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