Lufthansa Flight 181

The hijacking was a dramatic escalation in the so-called German Autumn of 1977, a period marked by a series of terrorist activities in West Germany. It was directly linked to the dramatic kidnapping in Braunsfeld, Cologne, of Hanns Martin Schleyer, a prominent West German industrialist, by the Red Army Faction (RAF) "Commando Siegfried Hausner" group on 5 September 1977. Militants of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), working in concert with the RAF, hijacked the Lufthansa Landshut plane to secure the release of their imprisoned leaders and comrades, predominantly held in the West German supermax Stammheim Prison, as well as two Palestinians held in Turkey. The hijacking was intended to increase pressure on the West German government to meet these demands. It culminated in the West German GSG 9 rescue operation, codenamed "Feuerzauber" (German for "Magic Fire"), which resulted in the liberation of all 87 passengers and four of the five crew members. Three hijackers were killed during the rescue, and one was captured alive. == Lufthansa crew ==

Two flight crew and three cabin crew operated the round-trip flight from Frankfurt to Palma de Mallorca: • Jürgen Schumann (37): Captain. Born in Colditz in 1940, he was a former German Air Force Lockheed F-104 Starfighter pilot. On 16 October at Aden Airport, after being permitted to leave the aircraft to check its airworthiness following a forced landing on an unpaved sand strip, he also spoke with Yemeni airport authorities to try to ensure the plane remained grounded. On his return, he boarded the plane after a long absence, only to be murdered by terrorist leader Zohair Yousif Akache (nom de guerre Captain Mahmoud) in a fit of rage, fueled by suspicions, before he could explain his reasons for the long absence. It was believed this act was also intended to add weight to the kidnappers' demands. Posthumously awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit 1st class for his actions during the hijack, he was survived by his wife and two sons. The building housing the Lufthansa Pilot School in Bremen was named in his honour, as was a street in the Bavarian city of Landshut. He is buried in Babenhausen in Hesse. • Jürgen Vietor (35): Co-Pilot. Born in Kassel in 1942, a former German Navy pilot. He piloted the Landshut from Aden to Mogadishu. He returned to work just six weeks after the hijacking, and the first aircraft he was assigned to was the Landshut which had already been repaired and returned to service. He was also awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class for his actions during the hijacking. He retired in 1999. In December 2008, he returned the medal in protest over the release on probation of the former Red Army Faction terrorist Christian Klar, who had been involved in the kidnap and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer in 1977. • Hannelore Piegler (33): Chief flight attendant. Austrian. She was in charge of the cabin crew, servicing the first-class passengers. For her courage and dedication to the crew and passengers during the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181, she was awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit. • Anna-Maria Staringer (27/28): Flight attendant. Norwegian. • Gabriele Dillmann (23): Flight attendant. Despite her young age, she was a pillar of support and hope for the other hostages and was dubbed the "Angel of Mogadishu" (Engel von Mogadischu) by the German press for her courageous behaviour. Along with her flight crew, she was awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit for her courage. She subsequently married Lufthansa pilot Rüdiger von Lutzau, who piloted the Lufthansa Boeing 707 aircraft with the GSG 9 counter-terrorism unit that landed in Mogadishu. As Gabriele von Lutzau, she has acquired an international reputation as a sculptor, principally of figures in beechwood, and has shown her work in numerous exhibitions in Germany and throughout Europe. == Hijackers ==

• Zohair Yousif Akache (23), nom de guerre Captain Mahmoud: Also known by his Iranian passport alias Ali Hyderi. He was the leader of the hijacker group. Growing up in a refugee camp near Beirut, he later studied at the Chelsea College of Aeronautical and Automobile Engineering in London, leaving in 1975 after gaining his aeronautical diploma. A veteran terrorist, he had already murdered two Yemen Arab Republic diplomats and the wife of one of them in London on 10 April 1977, and was wanted by Scotland Yard in connection with the killings. The political assassination took place outside the Royal Lancaster Hotel, where the former Prime Minister of Yemen, Kadhi Abdullah al-Hajri (65), his wife, Fatimah (40), and a Yemeni diplomat, Abdullah Ali al Hammami, minister plenipotentiary at the embassy, were murdered in their Mercedes vehicle using a silenced .32 automatic pistol. Akache left the country that afternoon via Heathrow Airport, using a Kuwaiti passport in the name of Ahmed Badir al-Majid. More than a year earlier, Akache had also been sentenced to six months in prison for hitting a police officer while attending a meeting in Hyde Park, London, and was later deported. Iranian passport alias Riza Abbasi. Son of wealthy Christian parents in Beirut, he occasionally exchanged friendly words with the hostages. The passengers referred to him as "the boy". They also sifted through the passengers' passports, luggage, and personal possessions, searching for clues indicating Jewish identity. At one point, Mahmoud found a Montblanc pen in a passenger's luggage. Mistaking the snowcap logo on the cap of the pen for the Star of David, he accused the female passenger of being Jewish. Despite the passenger's desperate denial, Mahmoud declared, "You report for shooting tomorrow morning at 8:30, understood?" Almost as feared as the leader Mahmoud was Andrawes Sayeh, whom some passengers later described as equally zealous. Aribert Martin, one of the West German GSG 9 commandos who stormed the Lufthansa Landshut aircraft in Mogadishu to rescue the hostages, recalled, "The first thing that hit me was an unbelievable stench. The terrorists hadn't let the hostages go to the toilet, so the passengers had to relieve themselves in their seats. This had been going on for five days. I could smell that stench for years." This recollection was echoed by his colleague, Peter Horstmüller, who also stormed the aircraft, and other GSG 9 commandos. == Key West German rescue personnel ==

• Lieutenant Colonel (Oberstleutnant) Ulrich Wegener (48): Founder and commander of GSG 9 (Border Guard Group 9), the specialized counter-terrorism tactical intervention unit of the Federal Border Guard (Bundesgrenzschutz), established by West Germany in 1972 shortly after the Munich Olympic massacre. • Major Klaus Blätte (38): Deputy commander of GSG 9 in 1977 who took part in the operation to storm the Landshut at Mogadishu. When Wegener was promoted in 1979, Blätte succeeded him as commander of GSG 9. • Minister Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski (55): Minister of State in the Federal Chancellery, designated by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as his special envoy to coordinate the political negotiations with various foreign governments to facilitate the release or rescue of the Landshut hostages. Due to his excellent contacts and personal relationships with Arab leaders, he was nicknamed "Ben Wisch" by the German press. When Helmut Schmidt was succeeded by Helmut Kohl, Wischnewski became a traveling consultant to Arab, African, and South American countries, advising them on negotiating techniques and pacification policies to deal with terrorist and insurgent groups. He died in 2005. • Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (58): German Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler) from 1974 and 1982, he adopted a tough, uncompromising stance on the Hanns Martin Schleyer kidnapping and the Lufthansa 181 hijacking in 1977. He authorized the GSG 9 mission to rescue the Landshut hostages, and his anti-terrorism policies were successful in overcoming the long-standing threat posed by the Red Army Faction. After retiring from the Bundestag in 1986, he helped found the committee supporting the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union and the creation of the European Central Bank. He died in 2015. == Hijacking ==

At 13:55 Central European Time (CET) on Thursday, 13 October 1977, Lufthansa flight LH 181, a Boeing 737 named Landshut, took off from Palma de Mallorca Airport en route to Frankfurt Airport with 87 passengers (91 including the 4 hijackers) and five crew members. The hijackers were able to board the aircraft carrying two concealed pistols, four hand grenades, and of plastic explosive due to lack of airport security in Palma, Spain. The flight was piloted by Captain Jürgen Schumann, with co-pilot Jürgen Vietor at the controls. About 30 minutes later, while overflying Marseille, the aircraft was hijacked by four militants of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who called themselves "Commando Martyr Halima" in honour of fellow German militant Brigitte Kuhlmann. Kuhlmann, who used the nom de guerre "Halima", had been killed in Operation Entebbe in Uganda the previous year. The leader of the hijacker group, adopting the nom de guerre Captain Mahmoud, angrily burst into the cockpit, brandishing a fully loaded pistol. He forcibly removed Vietor from the cockpit, sending him to the economy class area to join the passengers and flight attendants, leaving Schumann at the flight controls. As the other three hijackers knocked over food trays and ordered the hostages to put their hands on their heads, Mahmoud coerced Captain Schumann to fly east to Larnaca in Cyprus but was told that the plane had insufficient fuel and would have to land in Rome first. Rome The hijacked aircraft changed course at around 14:38 CET, as reported by air traffic controllers in southern France near Aix-en-Provence, diverting eastward and landing at Fiumicino Airport in Rome at 15:45 CET for refuelling. At around 17:00 CET, the hijackers made their first demands via the control tower, acting in concert with a Red Army Faction group, the Commando Siegfried Hausner group, which had kidnapped West German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer five weeks earlier. They demanded the release of all "comrades" imprisoned in the Federal Republic (West Germany), specifically the eleven Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorists detained predominantly at the supermax Stammheim Prison in Stuttgart. The West German government expected active support for its tough anti-terrorism policy from its NATO and EC partners. West German Interior Minister Werner Maihofer contacted his Italian counterpart Francesco Cossiga and urged that the take-off of the hijacked plane be prevented by all means possible—whether by blocking the runway, which was initiated hesitantly or by shooting out the tyres during take-off. Cossiga never considered this, because the airport administration had unilaterally complied with the kidnappers' request to refuel the plane. Firing on the plane as it took off could easily have led to an explosion and thus a bloodbath among the passengers. After consulting with his colleagues, Cossiga decided that the most desirable solution for the Italian government was to rid itself of the problem altogether and not become a target of international terrorism through forceful action. At 17:42 CET, the Landshut took off unhindered towards Cyprus, even without obtaining clearance from Rome air traffic control. Hijackers demands and ultimatum While maintaining a rigorous news blackout, the West German government, stalling for time—a strategy they had already adopted early in the crisis of the kidnapping of West German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer on 5 September—asked the hijackers to "clarify" some points in their communiqué. The West German government had previously proposed Geneva lawyer , president of the Swiss League for Human and Citizen Rights (''Ligue suisse des droits de l'homme et du citoyen''), as a middleman for negotiations with Schleyer's kidnappers. Payot, a 35-year-old lawyer, was first mentioned by Schleyer's kidnappers when they demanded that Payot and Martin Niemoeller, an 85-year-old German theologian, Lutheran pastor, and former opponent of the Nazi regime, accompany the eleven Red Army Faction members on a flight to a country that would be named after they were freed from prison. In an interview with journalists, this information was revealed by Dubai's Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, then Minister of Defence. The hijackers learned about this, possibly from the radio, causing an enraged Mahmoud to angrily threaten Schumann's life for secretly sharing this coded message. The aircraft remained parked on the tarmac at Dubai International Airport throughout Saturday, 15 October, during which the jet airliner experienced technical snags with the electrical generator, air conditioning, and auxiliary power unit breaking down. The hijackers demanded that engineers fix the plane. On the morning of Sunday, 16 October, Mahmoud threatened to start shooting hostages if the aircraft was not refuelled, and Dubai authorities eventually agreed to refuel the plane. Due to the high phosphorus content, the grenades were deemed unsuitable and were not used in the plane. Schumann boarded the plane, only to be confronted by Mahmoud's wrath. In a fit of rage fueled by suspicions, Mahmoud furiously forced him to kneel on the cabin floor, shouting that he had betrayed the passengers: "Guilty or not guilty?" Without giving Schumann a chance to explain, Mahmoud shot him in the head, in front of terrified passengers, including children. The hijackers set a 16:00 CET deadline for the Red Army Faction (RAF) prisoners to be released, threatening to blow up the aircraft. The hijackers poured duty-free perfume and spirits over the hostages, telling them it would make them burn better, in preparation for the destruction of the aircraft, which ultimately did not occur. The hijackers were then told that the West German government had agreed to release the RAF prisoners and that their transfer to Mogadishu would take several more hours, but this was a ruse. The hijackers agreed to extend the deadline to 02:30 CET the following morning (18 October). Mahmoud, now in high spirits, projected himself as the victor as the hijackers untied the hostages. Unbeknownst to them, however, the West German counter-terrorism unit GSG 9 was preparing to storm the Lufthansa aircraft and bring the dramatic hijacking to a decisive end. ==Rescue==

Operation Feuerzauber: The German GSG 9 assault While West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt attempted to negotiate an agreement with Somali President Siad Barre from Bonn, special envoy Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, GSG 9 commander Ulrich Wegener, and his adjutants Dieter Fox and officer Frieder Baum, who had all been trailing the hijacked Landshut flight and monitoring the situation as part of Wischnewski's mobile crisis management team, arrived at Mogadishu from Jeddah. In West Germany, a team of approximately 60 GSG 9 Federal Border Guard (Bundesgrenzschutz) counter-terrorism commandos consisting of two units as well as technicians, field telecoms engineers, and paramedics, led by Wegener's deputy commander, Klaus Blätte, had already assembled at Sankt Augustin-Hangelar near Bonn and were on standby, awaiting instructions. One of the GSG 9 units had already dispatched from West Germany to trail the Landshut and had landed at a NATO military base in Crete, expecting to be deployed while the Landshut was in Cyprus. On the evening of 16 October, the 1st unit GSG 9, flew from the Porz-Wahn military airfield to a NATO military base in Crete to meet the 3rd unit GSG 9. After the Landshut captain, Jürgen Schumann, was shot dead in Aden (Yemen), the probability of GSG 9 being deployed increased. They were ordered to follow the Landshut with an unspecified destination. The Lufthansa Boeing 707 aircraft, Stuttgart, carrying the GSG 9 assault team, flew from Crete towards Africa and finally to Mogadishu. It was co-piloted by Rüdiger von Lutzau, Gabriele Dillmann's fiancé. On 17 October, the aircraft carrying the GSG 9 assault team landed at Mogadishu International Airport at 17:30 CET with all its lights off to avoid detection by the hijackers. It parked about away on the joint-use military airport side. as well as the escape hatches in the fuselage via the overwing doors. Meanwhile, German representatives in the airport tower fed Mahmoud a fictitious progress report on the journey of the released prisoners. Mahmoud was informed that the plane carrying the prisoners had departed from Cairo after refuelling. He was then asked to provide the conditions for the prisoner-hostage exchange over the radio. Moments before the GSG 9 assault, Somali soldiers set off a massive explosion about in front of the jet airliner as a distraction tactic. This prompted Mahmoud and one of the other three hijackers to rush to the cockpit to observe what was happening, isolating them from the hostages in the cabin. After the GSG 9 observation and sniper command reported over the radio that the two male hijackers and the co-pilot were in the cockpit, the assault teams approached their assigned aircraft doors, put up their rubber-tipped aluminum ladders, and waited for the order to enter. At 00:05 CET, GSG 9 commander Wegener gave the order "Operation Feuerzauber!, Go!" (Operation Magic Fire). Wegener himself carried a .38 S&W Special 4" Model 19 service revolver. Each GSG 9 assault team consisted of two men holding a ladder, three climbing it, one opening the door, and another, weapon ready, storming into the plane, followed by the rest of the team. Fox found himself with a clear path, with the hijackers further up the plane. In press news footage, one female hijacker who survived her gunshot wounds, Andrawes Sayeh, was seen lying on a stretcher covered in blood after being shot in the legs and lungs. After the passengers were freed, as she was wheeled through the arrivals hall of Mogadishu airport, she raised her hand in a victory sign and uttered, "Kill me, we will win!". on 18 October 1977, with State Minister Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski and the GSG 9 counter-terrorism assault team (pictured) onboard. The rescued hostages returned on a separate Lufthansa Boeing 707 aircraft named Köln. Photograph by Ludwig Wegmann. The rescuers safely escorted all 87 passengers and 4 crew members off the Lufthansa Landshut aircraft. A few hours later, they were all flown to Cologne Bonn Airport, landing in the early afternoon of Tuesday, 18 October. The GSG 9 assault team received a hero's welcome at the airport, while the hostages, arriving on a separate flight, were met with overwhelming emotional relief. Global praise On 20 October, at the Federal Chancellery in Bonn, GSG 9 commander Ulrich Wegener and the GSG 9 assault team members were each awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for their meritorious actions in the successful rescue of the hostages of Lufthansa Flight 181. After the successful rescue operation, commendations from around the world poured into Bonn, many accompanied by requests for police training from the elite West German GSG 9 counter-terrorism unit. British government and SAS role Practical help came from West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's telephone conversations with British Prime Minister James Callaghan, whom the Chancellor had asked to influence Dubai, given the significant British influence in the former British protected states and Gulf sheikhdoms. Chancellor Schmidt's goal was to apply influence on Dubai to prevent the Landshut from continuing further and allow the West German GSG 9 to rescue the hostages, as Dubai was then considered the only suitable place in the Middle East for such an operation. An ad hoc team was then set up in London, consisting of representatives of the British Foreign and Defence Ministries, the MI6 Secret Service, other Middle East experts, and the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates. The foreign policy office in the West German Federal Chancellery, led by Jürgen Ruhfus, was also involved. In addition to maps, the British government provided two security experts from their Special Air Service (SAS), later known as Major Alastair Morrison accompanied by Sergeant Barry Davies from the SAS's Pagoda Team, as well as new types of diversionary "flashbang" stun grenades and special bulletproof vests, which were later used in Mogadishu. For a long time, there were persistent rumours that the two SAS operators had helped to draw up the operational plan. However, Wegener, the commander of the GSG 9 rescue operation, dismissed these claims as complete nonsense. Wegener said, 'The SAS operators proposed a completely different tactic from the one we preferred. Our concept involved penetrating the aircraft through all entrances and exits'—rather than just one. There are also many legends surrounding the use of stun grenades in the rescue operation. Wegener said in an interview that the British SAS (Special Air Service Regiment) offered the grenades, which were tested for effectiveness in Dubai. Due to the high phosphorus content, the grenades were deemed unsuitable and were not used in the plane; they also would not have contributed to the success of the operation. However, GSG 9 commander Wegener assigned the two British SAS operatives to participate in the GSG 9 assault operation, specifically deploying the British special "flash-bang" stun grenades around the front exterior of the Lufthansa Landshut aircraft at the very moment the GSG 9 assault teams would storm the aircraft. In the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Major Alastair Morrison the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and Sergeant Barry Davies the British Empire Medal (BEM) for their crucial roles in aiding West German officials. Their intimate knowledge of the Persian Gulf states and the Horn of Africa, gained during their SAS service in the British protected states, along with practical support under the direction of the British government, facilitated co-operation from local authorities in the region for the West German officials. This support aided the West German government's rescue efforts and contingency planning for operations on the southern coastline of the Arabian Peninsula. == Aftermath ==

Following the rescue of the hostages from Lufthansa Flight 181, RAF (Red Army Faction) members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe were found dead (allegedly by suicide) on the same night at the supermax Stammheim Prison in Stuttgart. On Wednesday, 19 October, the body of German industry president Hanns Martin Schleyer, who had been kidnapped by the RAF five weeks before the hijacking and was held hostage for 43 days, was found in the boot of a green Audi 100 with Bad Homburg registration plates on a side street, rue Charles-Péguy, in Mulhouse, Alsace, France, close to the French-Swiss and French-German borders. The RAF had shot him dead upon hearing about the deaths of their imprisoned comrades. They contacted the French newspaper Libération to announce his 'execution'; a subsequent post-mortem examination indicated that he had been killed the previous day. == Retirement and display ==

Originally built in January 1970, the Landshut is a Boeing 737-230C with two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-9A engines, named after the city of Landshut in Bavaria. While under the control of the hijackers, the plane had traveled . On 14 August 2017, an ex-pilot group suggested bringing the plane back to Germany. David Dornier, former director of the Dornier Museum, along with the German Foreign Ministry, subsequently agreed to the project. The 737 was acquired for R$75,936 (€20,519) in an agreement with the Fortaleza Airport administration for payment of taxes. On 15 August 2017, an Lufthansa MD-11F was sent to the airport with 8.5 tonnes of equipment and 15 Lufthansa Technik mechanics to dismantle the 737. On 21 and 22 September 2017, an An-124 and Il-76, both from Volga-Dnepr Airlines, arrived at Fortaleza. The An-124 carried the wings and fuselage back to Europe, while the Il-76 carried the engines and seats. After a refuelling stop in Cape Verde, both arrived in Friedrichshafen on 23 September 2017, for a total cost of €10 million paid by the Foreign Ministry. Smaller parts and equipment were sent to Germany in two cargo ship containers. Upon arrival, the parts were presented to approximately 4,000 people during a special event. The recovered Landshut aircraft was scheduled to be restored and exhibited by October 2019. Storage The disassembled plane had since been stored in a hangar at Airplus Maintenance GmbH in Friedrichshafen. The plan to restore and display it in its original 1977 Lufthansa livery was never carried out. Funding issues and questions over competing responsibilities between ministries delayed the project, as did uncertainty over €300,000 in yearly costs. In February 2020, a proposal to transfer the plane parts to Berlin Tempelhof was rejected by the Ministry. After three years in a hangar and with the 737's fate unresolved, David Dornier stepped down in September 2020 as museum director and was replaced by attorney Hans-Peter Rien. He and Culture Minister Monika Grütters (CDU) never agreed on further financing, and the project was placed on hold. By 2023, another hangar was rented, and an opening for an exhibition was planned for 2026. Studies The federal government looked into whether the aircraft could be exhibited in the Air Force Museum in Berlin-Gatow. The plans did not meet with approval from historians and experts, due to its remote location and lack of connection between the German army and the "Landshut" aircraft. CSU members of the Munich city council proposed bringing the aircraft to Munich, and an application was filed to see if the plane could be exhibited at former Munich Riem Airport. The city highlighted to Culture Minister Grütters the aircraft's connection to Munich, where it had been christened on 7 August 1970 in a Riem Airport hangar in the presence of a large delegation from Landshut. After exactly three years, plans to exhibit the 737 in the Dornier Museum were effectively ended. Display The Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, bpb) had confirmed in October 2024 that the Landshut display would be relocated to Hall Q, a reconstructed hall in Friedrichshafen. The renovation costs had not been specified, but the monthly rent for the hall, which measures plus nearly of open space, is 47,000 Euros. The lease is fixed for 15 years. This rent includes the costs for the now-completed renovations. It was decided that the aircraft, which had been rebuilt several times and mostly used as a cargo plane, would not be restored to its 1977 condition. "The focus is on preserving a special historical object with a varied history," said the Federal Agency for Civic Education. Work was being carried out in Hall Q, adjacent to the Spacetech Arena in Friedrichshafen Airport. The opening of the Learning Place Landshut project for public visits is intended to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the hostage rescue in 2027. €15 million was made available from the German federal government, in the following allotments: • €7.5 million: • €2.5 million: aircraft maintenance and restoration • €2.5 million: hangar reconstruction • €1.5 million: provision of technical equipment • €1.0 million: implementation of teaching concept • €7.5 million: operating subsidy for the 10-year period, tied to the requirement to limit museum entrance fees to 5 euros per person On 22 October 2024, the former Landshut aircraft fuselage was towed from a storage hangar to its display hall about 450 meters away on the grounds of Friedrichshafen Airport. Following this, the fuselage received a cleaning. == Notable hostages ==

• Horst-Gregorio Canellas, German football official responsible for breaking the 1971 Bundesliga scandal was one of the hostages on board, along with his daughter. == In popular culture ==

The hijacking and the hostage rescue operation were portrayed in two German television films: '' in 1997 and Mogadischu'', directed by Roland Suso Richter, in 2008. The 2015 video game ''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege'' used Lufthansa Flight 181, along with other historical hostage extraction operations, as inspiration for the game and as research for making the game more accurate. == See also ==