The Flight
Algeria was in a state of civil war. 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, went on its first flight on 28 February 1980.
Read more about this topic: Air France Flight 8969
Famous quotes containing the word flight:
“AIDS was ... an illness in stages, a very long flight of steps that led assuredly to death, but whose every step represented a unique apprenticeship. It was a disease that gave death time to live and its victims time to die, time to discover time, and in the end to discover life.”
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“When we are high and airy hundreds say
That if we hold that flight they’ll leave the place,
While those same hundreds mock another day
Because we have made our art of common things ...”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)