Marseilles Marignane airport highjacking

[Frank S.]

One of the precursors to 9/11.

http://www.specialoperations.com/Counte ... /gign.html

On December 26, 1994 the GIGN again faced a potentially disastrous encounter with Muslim terrorists when Captain Denis de Favier prepared his "super Gendarmes" to storm an Air France passenger jet hijacked in Algeria by suicidal terrorists of that country's Armed Islamic Group (AIG).

News about the hijacking, which began at midday on December 24, caught many members of the French counter-terrorist unit at home with their families for Christmas. However, the tall, angular-faced de Favier had not strayed far from Paris and his briefings, contingency planning an transport arrangements were methodically prepared by the time his men were assembling early that afternoon at their HQ outside Versailles.

Four terrorists of the AIG, the extremist faction of an Islamic fundamentalist coalition waging a bloody civil war against the military-backed government of Algeria, had managed to board an Air France airbus disguised as airport security men. As the aircraft readied for take-off at 11:15 a.m., the terrorists had produced miniature AK-47s with collapsible stocks, crying "Allah Akbar" to announce that the airbus was under their control and all of the passengers and the crew were their prisoners.

With their blue strobe lights flashing, the GIGN vehicles raced out to the forested highway leading out of Versailles, as 257 terrified hijack victims helplessly watched an Algerian policeman and a Vietnamese diplomat being dragged to the front of the aircraft. There were cries for mercy and then the crackle of automatic gunfire as the two men were shot in the back of the head and their bodies dumped on the runway. The terrorists were deadly serious about their demand to be flown to Paris.

The GIGN team, which by that evening had driven on to the military airfield of Neuilly, boarded an Air France airbus identical to the hijacked plane. Special arrangements had been made so that they could completely familiarize themselves with the aircraft's workings, and so plan and practice the counter-hijack operation, while flying south to their destination. But clearance to land at Algiers' Boumedienne airport had not been received as de Favier and his team took off shortly before 8 p.m.

Philippe Legorjus, the former GIGN chief who had trained de Favier and most of the other men now preparing for what was their first real-life storming of an aircraft, had also cut short his Christmas break. He was driving to his parents' home in Normandy with his wife and two children when his beeper sounded. After dropping them off with hurried kisses, he drove without stopping to his reserved parking place beneath the corporate headquarters of Air France, off the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

As the chief security consultant for France's national airline, Legorjus was a vital member of the Air France crisis-management team which now came together. The company president was in touch with the French government; the chief pilot was finding out as much as possible about what was going on inside the plane and passing on the information to Legorjus, who was in constant radio contact with the GIGN team. He was also on the phone to the chief of Algiers' airport police and the sinister commander of the Algerian Army's elite commando force, the Ninjas, who ringed Boumedienne airport.

French Prime Minister Balladur flew to Paris from the Alpine resort of Chamonix, Interior Minister Pasqua arrived form the Cote d' Azur, and Foreign Minister Juppe chaired the government's swelling crisis team as a host of other government officials interrupted their holidays to assume their places. The decision was quickly reached to accede to the hijackers' demands by allowing the aircraft to land in Marseilles. But the Algerian authorities would not let it leave Algiers.

"The Ninjas wanted us to launch a full-frontal assault on the airbus," explains Legorjus, "using explosives to blast our way inside. It was going to be a disaster." And probably similar to the fiasco a decade earlier when Egyptian commandos had tried to storm a plane hijacked to Malta, killing fifty hostages in the process.

Given the military nature of the Algerian government, certain key army commanders held sway over Cabinet ministers who would otherwise have been prepared to comply with the French government's wishes. Throughout Christmas Day heated exchanges by telephone went on between members of Balladur's Cabinet and their Algerian counterparts, and by evening the crisis seemed to be reaching a head. The terrorists had laid down an ultimatum. If the mobile stairway was not withdrawn and the airbus allowed to take-off, they would kill a hostage every half an hour. At 9:30 p.m. they brought a French national up to the cockpit: a young cook employed at the French Embassy. They held a gun to his head. "If you don't allow the plane to take off they are going to kill me," he pleaded over the radio.

Pasqua called the Algerian Interior Minister and told him to withdraw the stairway. He in turn called the colonel commanding the black-hooded, machine-gun toting Ninjas on the runway. The Cabinet minister gave the Ninja chief a flat order: "Withdraw the passenger steps." The reply was a swift "f@#k you!" The Ninjas, locked into a savage three-year-old struggle against the Islamic guerrillas, could not agree to an order from civilians which could be considered as any type of concession. "They didn't even want our help," says Legorjus. Advice from two French military advisers at Boumedienne airport was being ignored and permission for the GIGN team to land continued to be refused. De Favier and his men were waiting on board their airbus at the nearby Spanish airport of Palma de Mallorca.

The Algerians tried to reassure the French government that the terrorists were bluffing. But shortly after 10 p.m., the French cook's corpse came tumbling down the mobile stairway. Discussions followed and between other key French negotiators and high-ranking Algerian military commanders. Following direct orders from his Prime Minister and from army generals, the Ninja colonel disgustedly agreed to withdraw the stairway, allowing the plane to take-off at 2 a.m. for Marseilles, where the French government had cleared it to land.

De Favier's team were already in place, having touched down just twenty minutes earlier on board their airbus at an airstrip adjacent to the main airport. GIGN snipers had taken up positions around the control tower. Paratroopers from another special surveillance unit, the Escadron Parachutiste de la Gendarmerie Nationale (EPGN), were camouflaged among the tall grass lining the runway, closely observing the hijacked plane, Flight 8969, taxiing to a halt at Marseilles-Marignane.

The negotiations were now entirely under the control of the GIGN. The Gendarmerie's chief prefect in Marseilles, Alain Gehim, served as the main interlocutor with the hijackers, speaking with them over the radio from the control tower. At every juncture during the discussions, de Favier would quietly pass him written instructions. The priorities were to find out as much as possible to give the counter-terrorism team the necessary time to prepare their assault and favorably position the airbus. They could conduct the assault as soon as they were ready--and the sooner the better. There were reasons. Flight 8969 could under no circumstances be allowed to fly to Paris or indeed leave Marseilles.

Intelligence officers at the French Embassy in Algiers had received an urgent call from a paid informant in the Islamic underground, saying that the AIG planned to blow up the airbus over Paris, crashing it into the middle of the city. The information appeared to have some corroboration from some of the sixty-three passengers who had been released in Algiers. Several said that they had heard the four gunmen, who seemed highly fanatical, talk repeatedly about flying to the eternal paradise and make many references to "Allah's perpetual white light"--the Islamic vision of holy death. The possibility of a Lockerbie-type terrorist air disaster over the French capital was being taken very seriously.

Fearing that explosive charges had already been set on board the aircraft, the GIGN had to plan its assault very carefully, and it was now the government which was growing impatient, wanting action by mid-morning. But de Favier insisted that he needed to get right up close to the aircraft to plant listening devices to monitor the exact movements and sounds inside the plane before he could refine his assault plan. The intelligence being gained through microwave sound amplifiers trained on the aircraft was not proving sufficient.

Terrorist demands for twenty-seven tons of fuel to fly on to Paris were used as leverage by the GIGN to stall the hijackers. Gehim demanded in exchange the release of all the passengers. At one point the hijackers' leader, Abdul Yahia, screamed into the cockpit microphone, "You want us to blow up everything right here! You have one and a half hour to let us take off to Paris." The deadline he had set was 10:00 a.m.

It was a slip on Yahia's part, indicating that explosives were wired up inside the aircraft. The terrorists had maintained several hours of radio silence between their landing at 3:30 a.m. and the start of negotiations with Gehim at 6 a.m. The placing of two ten-stick packs of dynamite in the cockpit and beneath a row of passenger seats fused by one detonator had, apparently, been carried out during that time. The amount of fuel the hijackers were demanding was three times what was needed to fly to Paris. Its real purpose, the GIGN speculated, was to create an exploding fireball somewhere above the Eiffel Tower. Gehim then spun out the negotiations still further, offering to provide the hijackers with food and to service the aircraft, cleaning it and emptying the blocked toilets, which were creating a terrible smell. They agreed. Disguised among the stewards and service crew who were allowed to the aircraft, GIGN operatives inserted minuscule eavesdropping devices. Tiny infrared closed-circuit cameras and cannon microphones were placed by windows along the exterior of the fuselage. It was now possible to monitor closely what was happening in the aircraft.

"We now reached the consensus to pass on to offensive action," says de Favier. "We had the necessary intelligence to plan our operation with exactitude. We knew that none of the entrances to the aircraft were booby-trapped or obstructed and that two terrorists were inside the cockpit at all times." It was decided, however, to try to press for the release of more hostages before an assault which would inevitably entail casualties. There was no doubt that the terrorists were determined to resist and were well armed. Each has a 7.62mm Kalashnikov sub-machinegun and hand-grenades. Most menacingly, there were also the explosives.

Shortly after midday an elderly couple walked off the airbus, leaving over 150 fellow passengers on board. Yahia insisted that it was the last concession he would make before reaching Paris. The GIGN assault force began positioning themselves around the runway. After dividing his men into four teams, de Favier moved them into predetermined locations hidden from the view of the aircraft. Using careful calculations, he had planned the exact angles from which to rush the plane's three main entry points on mobile stairways. The GIGN commander was confident that access into the fuselage could be gained by simple manipulation of the hatch doors' exterior mechanisms.

The release prisoners told the hostage negotiators that the hijackers were growing increasingly impatient and irritable, reading out passages form the Koran in frantic tones over the aircraft's speaker system.

By 4 p.m. the GIGN were in position at the bottom of their respective mobile stairways and fully prepared. After putting their Kevlar helmets with yellowish Plexiglas visors over their heads, already hooded with ski masks, and strapping bulletproof vests over fire-retardant suits, they checked and rechecked their .357 magnum revolvers, and their 9mm MP-5 sub-machineguns and automatic pistols. Snipers lying low at the top of the control tower trained their rifles' telescopic sights on the cockpit, where two of the terrorists guarded the pilot and flight crew. The assault could be launched at any moment, but with the patient assurance instilled by experience and cool professionalism, Captain de Favier preferred to wait a little longer. He wanted to wait until twilight.

"The biggest problem until now had been to stay concentrated amidst the inaction and uncertainty. We could anticipate the danger although we did not really imagine what awaited us," recalls Alain, who had barely completed two years in the GIGN and was now among the lead squad of Gendarmes who would be entering the hijacked plane's cockpit.

Just before 5 p.m. de Favier's instructions to be ready to move at a moment's notice came over the radio sets inside the men's helmets. Magnums were unholstered and those men with MP-5s pulled back their round cocking levers. Suddenly the searing noise of accelerating jet engines came from the airbus parked some 400 yards away, and it started to move. Yahia's shrill voice then came screaming over the control tower's amplified system. IF the plane was not refueled for take-off in fifteen minutes, he threatened, "I will take action!"

Prefect Gehim reassured him that the refueling trucks were on the way as the aircraft rolled slowly towards the control tower. He played for time while the GIGN assault teams repositioned themselves, adjusting their angles of approach. The plane got to within thirty yards of the control tower and at 5:08 p.m. a gun barrel protruded from the cockpit's window. Shots cracked out and Gehim ducked, together with the others in the tower, as 7.62mm rounds shattered the bay window before them. The snipers held their fire. Gehim strained to keep his voice clam over the next few minutes, trying to sustain his dialogue with Yahia as the GIGN adjusted their plan.

"Zero," said de Favier finally. His signal for action rushed through his men's headsets like an electrical current, triggering, as if by remote control, a series of carefully choreographed split-second movements. The trailer engines of three mobile stairways started simultaneously. The groups of eight Gendarmes positioned on each one climbed the steps in double file as the stairways drew ever nearer to the plane. A sniper on the control tower repeatedly squeezed the trigger of his .50 rifle, its silencer muffling the six shots that smashed through the cockpit's right-hand windscreen. "He had to be careful," it had been made clear. The heavy rounds were fired high. "It was very difficult to determine who was terrorist and who was air crew inside the cramped cabin, where everyone ducked for cover as the half-inch bullets crashed inside, distracting the terrorists as the stairway came up to the right-hand door of the aircraft."

One Gendarme leaped to grab the hatch. Sliding with the door to the side to make sure it stayed open, he let his feet fly off the stairway. A GIGN stun grenade was thrown inside and flashed through the firs class section as a shooter pair, one armed with a magnum and the other with an MP-5, rushed through the narrow opening. They caught two shocked hijackers along the hallway, making for the cockpit. One shot from the magnum instantly blew away the nearest terrorist, drilling a .357 bullet diagonally through his forehead. But in the next half a second a barrage of automatic fire from Yahia and another hijacker barricaded with the flight crew, hit the Gendarmes like an avalanche of steel.

Squeezing a burst from his MP-5 after the other terrorist leaping into the cockpit, Sub-officer Thierry pursued him through the open door, resting his sub-machinegun against his shoulder to carefully train its sight and avoid hitting hostages. But he instantly received seven AK rounds. Three 7.62 bullets perforated his exposed right arm, shooting off three fingers curled around the MP-5's handgrip, which was also shot to pieces. Other bullets hit his shoulder and chest, shredding the black vinyl fabric and denting the steel ceramic plates of his bulletproof vest. Another round ricocheted off the Gendarme's Kevlar helmet as he reeled backwards, collapsing on to the carpeted hallway. He could only think of protecting himself from the continuing barrage of bullets and heard someone shout "Grenade!" as an explosion ripped through the cabin, wounding the other Gendarmes rushing in behind him. Thierry felt the pain of shrapnel peppering his right leg before losing consciousness.

Eric, who had shot the first terrorist, had the magnum blown out of his hand by a bullet hitting its long steel barrel just as he fired a second round. In the next split second, he too was lying on the floor, his face bleeding from the helmet's splintered visor-- proofed against 9mm ammo but unable to withstand the high-velocity 7.62 rounds. Feeling other wounds along his shoulder and arm, he could still only think of recovering his weapon, which he found lying by a corner, its handle blown off by the grenade explosion.

The fire from the AK-47s was incessant. "I'll never forget their characteristic clapping noise as the bullets flew around me. It was impressive," says Olivier, who entered the cabin amid the smoke and shrapnel of the fragmentation grenade. Jolted by the impact of several rounds on his bulletproof vest, he was soon partially immobilized by trauma to his spine and a bullet in his left hip.

"Six of my men fell wounded around me as we came inside," recalls de Favier, who personally led the first assault wave and was the only one who had not bee hit as Yahia's hate-filled face peered through the cockpit's cracked door as he fired his sub-machinegun. De Favier instantly aimed his magnum, but a bullet from an AK-47 hit the side of his helmet, tearing off the visor and forcing him to take cover. Hundreds of rounds, many coming straight through the door and dividing walls of the cockpit, were hosing the Gendarmes. "The terrorists were highly trained," says de Favier, "and very quick." They hardly took a second between releasing spent ammunition clips and inserting fresh ones into their curved magazines. They knew exactly how to fire, aiming for heads and the upper chest. "Their deadly spray didn't let up for an instant."

The Gendarme who had opened the right-hand door of the airbus had remained hanging in the air from the handle as the seven others rushed inside. He then let go. In the twenty-foot fall on to the concrete runway, he used his parachute training to relax his legs, and landed uninjured. As he reached the cabin door amid a hail of gunfire and with bodies lying everywhere, he went into a low crouch, aiming his lightweight Austrian-made 9mm automatic pistol and squeezing off several rounds into the cockpit door. Suddenly a 7.62mm bullet penetrated squarely through his pistol's stock, going beneath the barrel, driving into the chamber and coming out on the trigger, which disintegrated into tiny pieces as the weapon flew out of his hand. The Gendarme was left with a broken index finger as another bullet smashed through a spare ammunition clip in the chest pouch of his bulletproof vest.

The front left-hand door of the aircraft now slid open as the eight Gendarmes in the second assault wave stormed into the smoking inferno, which stank of blood and cordite. A terrorist shooting from the cockpit's side window sprayed them with a burst of sub-machinegun fire before they were even inside. Several rounds hit the side of the sliding door as it moved towards the cockpit. Aiming his MP-5, the lead gunner instantly followed de Favier's orders, firing at point-blank range at the left section of the cockpit, through which a lot of gunfire was coming. But AK-47 rounds fired back at floor level hit the Gendarme's lower legs within point-blank range of the partition. The officer fell and had to be pulled away under covering fire by other Gendarmes, who began evacuating their most severely wounded comrades.

GIGN men were simultaneously moving through the rear of the aircraft from the tail doors. Having opened emergency exits, they evacuated the 159 passengers, who came sliding out on escape chutes as the gun battle raged on at the front of the aircraft. Stray bullets flew into the main seating section but no passengers were wounded by gunfire and only thirteen were treated for light injuries, mostly cuts and bruises after the full evacuation was completed in twenty minutes.

The moment he saw blood bursting out of the terrorist closest to him as the intensifying stream of GIGN fire filled the cockpit, the plane's navigator calculated that the surviving gunmen would be too distracted to notice as he dashed to the open side window and jumped out of the plane. In doing so he was severely injured, but was quickly picked up by ambulance and rushed off for treatment for a broken leg. The pilot and co-pilot remaining in the cockpit hugged the floor beneath their seats, trying to keep their heads down as the body of a dead terrorist fell on top of them. Although wounded, Yahia kept inserting clips into his Kalashnikov, frantically spraying fire through the bullet-riddled partition.

The ferocious battle continued for ten minutes as two more Gendarmes from the second wave were wounded. Unable to see their targets, they followed de Favier's directions, always aiming their shots at the sections of the partition through which the gunfire was coming. Finally they heard the pilot's voice from inside, screaming, "Stop shooting!" Bursting into the cabin, the GIGN found the bullet-riddled bodies of three dead terrorists lying on top of both pilots, who were, remarkably, unscathed amid the blood, wreckage and piles of spent shell cases. They could see the package of dynamite tucked beneath the pilot's seat. It was fused to a detonator but the terrorists had not been given a moment's chance to operate the fuse-box mechanisms.

The GIGN's action at Marseilles has been hailed as the most dramatic counter-terrorist operation since the SAS debut at Prices Gate. In the view of retired GIGN commander Philippe Legorjus, "It was the most important intervention in the history of counter-terrorism. It was wonderful to see all the men whom I had trained and led perform so well under that kind of pressure."

There is little doubt that the wild Russian roulette of international terrorism had dealt the GIGN a loaded bullet. Nevertheless, the cost to the special operations unit was relatively low, considering the potentially disastrous situation they had faced: four suicidal, well-armed and expertly trained terrorists on an aircraft with around 160 hostages wired to explode with dynamite. Only Sub-officer Thierry remained hospitalized three months later, permanently disabled with one finger missing but feeling fortunate that he wasn't missing anything else. Three more men who underwent intensive care, Erik, Alain and Olivier, were release from the hospital shortly after a month's stay. The six other wounded Gendarmes needed no more than superficial surgery.

The GIGN operation on board Flight 8969 was classically unique in that it succeeded almost entirely in close quarter battle, the very essence of special forces counter-terrorist training, but with the added complication in this case of hardly being able to see the enemy. Unlike previous episodes, such as Princes Gate or Djibouti, standoff sniping played a very limited role in Marseilles. Here the assault team overcame the entire terrorist group, with hostages in their midst, inside a severely enclosed space, without causing the death of a single innocent victim.

[Sticky Blue]

Frank, well I suppose that answers my question! Many thanks and a stunning read. Explosions over Paris... now I see how you saw it coming.

Aye
Sticky

[Sisyphus]

Come on, Guys,

Frank posted a great 'article' on another thread. - Equally long, mind. I ain't on broadband!

I've asked before if i can copy and paste these things. Advice I was given didn't work. 'Select All' - 'Copy' put up a new Word Doc. and 'paste'

Any other ideas? So i don't have to sit here eating up 'air time'. And NO,
I can't go on AOL or similar 'genre'. I'm away for 6 months of the year and ain't payin for services I don't get.

Arrgh. OK I'm a tight a.....

[Frank S.]

I hear ya. I posted from home (56K). I used to have problems with cut and paste as well: what would happen was that after pasting a long article or reply in the message box, I would get an 'invalid session' message and had to try again and fail again.
I'm not sure whether there was a time out issue in there.
But now, after doing my cut and paste job in the forum message box, I copy the whole text again, just in case I lose it to 'invalid session'.

Somehow, though, I fear your problem is different. What exactly are the symptoms?

[nbforrest]

Thanks for the info. I too see how you saw it coming. I am syr this has been addressed but since I am new I missed the posts in response to the question, What is to be done? When Sept 11th happened, I wanted to line up on the Israeli - Palestine border with like minded individuals and do a double arm M-16 police call around the fertile crescent. I truly believe the Islamic world and Western civilization cannot peacefully interact on anything but a rudimentary level. I believe the philosophical/religous differences are too great.

[Whitey]

Frank SOF did a good artical on that operation. I remember that one well. The Arabs I think though are actually more like us than our financers. But we got to do the bidding of those who are important.

[Frank S.]

Frank SOF did a good artical on that operation. I remember that one well. The Arabs I think though are actually more like us than our financers. But we got to do the bidding of those who are important.

Agreed. As to the article, it was excerpted from Martin Arrosteguy's book "twilight warriors", and the language is a tad on the 'gushing' side. Good op, nonetheless.
And again, agreed with both you and nbforrest: agreement can be reached on the individual level. It is 'systems' which screw up human relations. Much of what we don't like here in the States but have no control over, is hated over there. They don't understand Americans and we don't understand them. The systems are there to make us clash until one side prevails.
I do not however preach understanding as this tends to lead most people into paralysis: it is a fight to the death. Terrorists always fail in the end.

[Frank S.]

nbforrest, good question: what needs to be done?
Actually, it is being done. It is just not publicized at all. Just as the true sitrep in Afghanistan is not being given nor talked about.
I have to say, I am very disappointed in comments from American SOF personnel's I read on the net. The trend is: nuke the country or at least part of it.
I just don't understand that. Back in the 80's, Assad's Syria was behind waves of bombings over Europe and France. The French approach?

They sent a small team after the head of Syrian counter-intelligence. In Spain, as he was about to climb aboard his car, surrounded by his security detail, a 7.62 hit the wall missing his head by inches. Weeks later, the head of DGSE told Assad's brother 'we know what you do and who carries it out. The next bullet's gonna be a bull's eye."

That bought us a couple years of peace. They stopped their support of terrorist ops in Europe right then and there. In those matters, I prefer the judiciously placed bullet to the indiscriminate atom bomb.

[nbforrest]

Perhaps the willingness for a final solution in this clash of cultures is because most SOF guys know/believe? that when it comes down to pulling the trigger, the politburo in D.C. will prevent the deal from closing or at least delay it so long the enemy can escape or work it to his advantage. "Go train to be the best and the brightest boys, but once in the field call Washington before you squeeze the trigger and send bob into that sweet night."

I am currently employed doing some stuff for uncle sugar and the lack of autonomy and acceptance of resposibility for simple decisions at levels way, way above operational is making all of us on the ground do cheetah flips on a daily basis. Perhaps it is the nature of the beast, a sick old tired wildebeast about to have its ass eaten for lunch on the plains of the Serengeti.

[Sticky Blue]

Sis, go to File and then 'save as' and save the page to your desktop and go offline. Once you have read it you can then delete the page!
Aye

[Sisyphus]

Stick,

Brilliant! It works!! But you knew it would didn't you!


Unfortunately, there's no emoticon for anyone bowing in awe and admiration!

[Sticky Blue]

Sis,
Knowledge is power... but only when shared. There are losts of tricks but you need to ask. I take some things for granted and when people ask I love to supply the answer because I know that they will pass on the knowledge. Certain people like to maintain that they are ninjas and won't share what they have learnt because it is a black art form.
The answer is always easy if you know it!