This Day in History: The Sabena Hijacking
Today marks the anniversary of the Sabena Flight hijacking. On this day, 47 years ago, a Belgian passenger plane en route to Israel was taken over. A day later, the hostages were freed.
- דבי רייכמן
- פורסם כ"ד אייר התשע"ט
The Sabena aircraft (Photo: Ron Ilan, courtesy of the IDF and Defense Ministry Archives) #VALUE!
On the Hebrew date of 24 Iyar, 5732, a passenger jet from Sabena Airlines departed from Brussels, Belgium, heading toward Israel with a scheduled stopover in Vienna, Austria. When it took off again from Vienna, there were 99 passengers onboard – most of them Israelis – along with 10 crew members.
Shortly after takeoff, four terrorists from the "Black September" group, armed with weapons and explosive belts, took control of the plane, spreading fear among the passengers. The hijacked plane landed in Lod, where the captors began negotiating with Israel, demanding the release of 315 Palestinian prisoners.
The elite Israeli force, Sayeret Matkal, was dispatched to free the plane's passengers. Under the guise of technicians fixing a plane malfunction and tricking the hijackers into thinking their demands were being met, Sayeret Matkal stormed the terrorists one day after the hijacking. Several passengers were injured during the operation, and unfortunately, one succumbed to her injuries, but the rest of the passengers were successfully rescued.
