Lufthansa Flight 181

Lufthansa Flight 181

D-ABCE, the aircraft involved in the hijacking, at Manchester Airport in 1975
Hijacking summary
Date	13–18 October 1977
Summary	Hijacking
Site	Initially over the Mediterranean Sea, south of the French coast; subsequently Mogadishu International Airport, Somalia
Passengers	86 plus 4 hijackers
Crew	5
Fatalities	4 (1 crew, 3 hijackers)
Injuries (non-fatal)	5 (1 flight attendant, 3 passengers, 1 hijacker)
Survivors	91 (All passengers, 4 crew, 1 hijacker)
Aircraft type	Boeing 737-200
Aircraft name	Landshut
Operator	Lufthansa
Registration	D-ABCE
Flight origin	Son Sant Joan Airport
Destination	Frankfurt International Airport

Operation Feuerzauber (Fire Magic)
Date 18 October 1977 Location Mogadishu, Somali Democratic Republic Result GSG 9 victory
Belligerents
GSG 9 22nd SAS (observers) Somali Army (support) Union Defence Force (support)	PFLP Red Army Faction
Commanders and leaders
Ulrich Wegener Alastair Morrison Siad Barre Zayed Al Nahyan	Zohair Akache  †
Strength
30 GSG 9 operators 2 SAS operators	4 hijackers
Casualties and losses
1 wounded	3 killed 1 wounded/captured
4 civilians wounded

Lufthansa Flight 181 was a Boeing 737–230 Adv aircraft named Landshut that was hijacked on 13 October 1977 by four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who called themselves Commando Martyr Halima. The objective of the hijacking was to secure the release of imprisoned Red Army Faction leaders. On 18 October the aircraft was stormed by the West German counter-terrorism group GSG 9 in Mogadishu, Somalia, and all 86 passengers rescued. The rescue operation was codenamed Feuerzauber (German term for "Fire Magic"). The hijacking is considered to be part of the German Autumn.

Two flight crew and three cabin crew operated the round-trip flight from Frankfurt to Palma de Mallorca:

At 11:00 on Thursday 13 October 1977, Lufthansa flight LH 181, a Boeing 737 named Landshut, took off from Palma de Mallorca en route to Frankfurt with 86 passengers and five crew, piloted by Jürgen Schumann, with co-pilot Jürgen Vietor at the controls. About 30 minutes later, as it passed over Marseilles, the aircraft was hijacked by four militants calling themselves "Commando Martyr Halima" – in honour of fellow militant Brigitte Kuhlmann, who had been killed in Operation Entebbe the previous year. Their leader was a Palestinian named Zohair Youssif Akache (23, male), who adopted the alias "Captain Martyr Mahmud". The other three were Suhaila Sayeh (22, female) – a Palestinian – and two Lebanese people, Wabil Harb (23, male) and Hind Alameh (22, female). Akache ("Mahmud") burst into the cockpit with a loaded pistol in his hand and ordered Vietor to join the passengers, leaving Schumann to take over the flight controls. Mahmud ordered Schumann to fly to Larnaca in Cyprus but was told that they had insufficient fuel and would have to land in Rome first.