The Hijacking of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 191

I was only about 12 when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 191 was hijacked on November 23, 1996, so I have no memory of the event. However, I stumbled across accounts of it while browsing the internet today and it’s an interesting hijacking case. Three Ethiopians in their twenties hijacked the plane, but it doesn’t sound like a planned attack as the three were armed with an axe, a fire extinguisher and a device they claimed was a bomb, but which turned out to be an alcohol bottle. It’s unclear if these were all taken from aboard the plane, but I don’t see how one could have gotten onto a plane with an axe or fire extinguisher, so it’s very possibly they just decided to hijack the plane with whatever was handy.

They claimed to have escaped from prison and didn’t speak English, only communicated in Amharic, a language native to Ethiopia. They beat up the copilot and removed him from the cockpit and ordered the pilot to fly to Australia. The scheduled route of the plane was to stop in several African cities and the plane did not have enough fuel to reach Australia. The pilot tried to explain that, but was ordered to fly to Australia anyway.

He flew along the east coast of Africa, hoping to be near land when it came time to make an emergency landing. However, the hijackers spotted land and figured out he was not following their orders and ordered him to fly over the ocean. The pilot then decided to try to make it to the Comoro Islands in the Indian Ocean. He reached the Comoros and began circling them, but the hijackers again ordered him to get over the water, despite the fact the fuel gauge was below empty. The hijackers became insistent that he go to Australia and began physically confronting the pilot. Unable to make an emergency landing and still fighting the hijackers, the pilot crashed the plane into the water just north of Grande Comoro Island attempting to ditch it in shallow waters.

Only fifty-two of the 175 passengers and crew survived, but it might have been zero if not for the pilot’s quick thinking. The pilot, Leul Abate, received an award from the Flight Safety Institute for his actions and, when last contacted, was still flying for Ethiopian Airlines. What’s perhaps most interesting is that a vacationing couple caught the plane hitting the water on film, which you can see and download in this CNN article. For information about the crash on Wikipedia, click here.