Air France Flight 8969

Air France Flight 8969

F-GBEC, the aircraft involved in the hijacking, at London Heathrow Airport in 1982.
Hijacking summary
Date	24–26 December 1994
Summary	Hijacking
Site	Houari Boumedienne Airport Algiers, Algeria then Marseille Provence Airport Marseille, France 43°26′23″N 5°12′54″E / 43.43972°N 5.21500°E / 43.43972; 5.21500Coordinates: 43°26′23″N 5°12′54″E / 43.43972°N 5.21500°E / 43.43972; 5.21500
Passengers	224 (including all 4 hijackers)A
Crew	12
Fatalities	7 (3 passengers, all 4 hijackers)
Injuries (non-fatal)	25 (13 passengers, 3 crew, 9 GIGN)
Survivors	217A
Aircraft type	Airbus A300B2-1C (c/n 104)
Operator	Air France
Registration	F-GBEC
Flight origin	Houari Boumedienne Airport
Destination	Paris-Orly Airport

Raid on Air France Flight 8969
Date 26 December 1994 Location Marseille, France Result GIGN victory
Belligerents
GIGN	GIA
Commanders and leaders
Major Denis Favier	Abdul Abdullah Yahia †
Strength
30 GIGN Operators	4 hijackers
Casualties and losses
9 wounded	4 killed
3 passengers were already dead prior to the raid 13 passengers wounded 3 crew wounded

Air France Flight 8969 was an Air France flight that was hijacked on 24 December 1994 by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) at Houari Boumedienne Airport, Algiers, Algeria, where the terrorists murdered three passengers, with the intention to blow up the plane over the Eiffel Tower in Paris. When the aircraft reached Marseille, the GIGN, a counter-terror unit of the French National Gendarmerie, stormed the plane and killed all four hijackers.

Algeria was in a state of civil war at the time of the hijacking. Aircraft flying to Algiers faced the possibility of missile attacks. As a result, Air France's flights to Algiers had crews entirely made of people who volunteered for the route. Air France had asked government officials if it absolutely had to continue flying to Algeria; as of the time of the hijacking, there had been no replies. Bernard Dhellemme was the captain of the flight. Jean-Paul Borderie was the copilot, and Alain Bossuat was the flight engineer. The Airbus A300B2-1C, tail number F-GBEC, had first flown on 28 February 1980.

On 24 December 1994, at Houari Boumedienne Airport, Algiers, Algeria, four armed men dressed as Algerian presidential police boarded Air France Flight 8969 bound to depart for Orly Airport, Paris at 11:15 am. The men had blue uniforms with Air Algérie logos. Their presence originally did not cause alarm. Two of them began inspecting the passengers' passports while one went into the cockpit and the fourth stood guard. Claude Burgniard, a flight attendant, recalled noticing that the "police" were armed and one hijacker had dynamite showing; she considered this as unusual as the Algerian police were not usually armed while performing checks. The Algerian military felt suspicion when it noticed that the Air France flight had what appeared to be an unauthorised delay, so members began surrounding the aircraft. Zahida Kakachi, a passenger, recalled seeing a group of Algerian special forces, known as "ninjas," outside the aircraft. Kakachi recalled hearing one of the "police" say "taghut," an Arabic word for "infidel", upon seeing the "ninjas" gathering outside the A300; therefore, she discovered that they were terrorists. The four men revealed then that they were not police, but mujahideen seeking to establish an Islamic state in Algeria. The men hijacked the aircraft because, as a part of the national airline Air France, it was a symbol of France, which they viewed as infidel foreign invaders.