Operation Entebbe - Hijacking

Hijacking

On 27 June 1976, Air France Flight 139, an Airbus A300 (Airbus A300B4-203), registration F-BVGG (c/n 019), originated from Tel Aviv, Israel, carrying 246 passengers and a crew of 12. 58 passengers waited to board at the Athens airport, including four hijackers. The flight took off from Athens, Greece headed for Paris. Soon after the 12:30 pm takeoff, the flight was hijacked by two Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations (PFLP-EO) and two Germans from the German Revolutionary Cells—Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann. The hijackers diverted the flight to Benghazi, Libya. There it was held on the ground for seven hours for refuelling. During that time the hijackers released a female hostage who pretended to have a miscarriage. The plane left Benghazi, and at 3:15 pm on the 28th, more than 24 hours after the flight's original departure, it arrived at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.

At Entebbe, the four hijackers were joined by at least four others, supported by the pro-Palestinian forces of Uganda's President, Idi Amin. They demanded the release of 40 Palestinians held in Israel and 13 other detainees imprisoned in Kenya, France, Switzerland, and West Germany. They threatened that if these demands were not met, they would begin to kill hostages on 1 July 1976.

The hijackers sorted the hostages into two groups—Jews and Israelis in one, everyone else in another. In 2011, one of the survivors, Ilan Hartuv, said that the hijackers did not separate out the Jews, only the Israelis. As they did so, a Holocaust survivor showed Böse a camp registration number tattooed on his arm, Böse protested "I'm no Nazi! ... I am an idealist".

According to one of the hostages, Ilan Hartuv, the hijackers told the hostages they were against Israel and not against Jews. Among the freed passengers were many Jews who did not hold Israeli citizenship, including two yeshiva students from Brazil.

The hijackers held the passengers hostage for a week in the transit hall of Entebbe Airport—now the old terminal. Some hostages were released, but 106 remained captive. The hijackers threatened to kill them if Israel did not comply with their demands.

The hijackers announced that the airline crew and non-Jewish passengers would be released and put on another Air France plane brought to Entebbe for that purpose. The flight captain Michel Bacos then told the hijackers that all passengers, including those who remained, were his responsibility and that he would not leave them behind. Bacos's entire crew followed suit. A French nun also refused to leave, insisting that one of the remaining hostages take her place, but Ugandan soldiers forced her into the waiting Air France plane. A total of 85 Israeli and non-Israeli Jewish hostages remained, plus 20 others, most of whom were the crew of the Air France plane.