Bibi speaks about the Sabena Flight 571 rescue mission in 1972 Sabena Flight 571 was a scheduled passenger flight from Vienna to Tel Aviv operated by the Belgian national airline, Sabena. On May 8, 1972 a Boeing 707 passenger aircraft operating that service, and captained by the Englishman, Reginald Levy, DFC, was hijacked by four terrorists from the Black September organization and landed at Lod Airport (later Ben Gurion International Airport) near Lod, although that was the planned destination anyway. On May 9, 1972 at 4:00 p.m. the rescue operation began: a team of 16 Sayeret Matkal commandos, led by Ehud Barak and including Benjamin Netanyahu who was in charge of a Israeli Commando unit, both future Israeli Prime Ministers, approached the airplane. The commandos were disguised as airplane technicians in white overalls, and were able to convince the terrorists that the aircraft needed repair. The Israeli Commandos stormed the aircraft and took control of the plane in ten minutes, killing both male hijackers and capturing the two women. All the passengers were rescued. Three of the passengers, however, were wounded in the takeover, with one female passenger eventually dying from her wounds. Benjamin Netanyahu was wounded during the rescue, presumably by friendly fire.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 07:18:57 +0000
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