The Comoran government was a farce, it was a dictatorship, it was - they were nice people but they were screamingly incompetent and corrupt to boot. The next day, I left for Comoros and there worked with the French, the Israelis who had lost six people and the Japanese who needed help and who also didn’t speak French but who’d lost a whole bunch of people. It was just wonderful to see the relief in the injured people’s faces when I introduced myself as the American ambassador and then explained to them what was going on. Actually, I ended up interpreting for lots of other injured people that didn’t speak French. The French military were very helpful and when the plane landed from Comoros, a French military plane with our injured people on it, I went to them, I interviewed them, the French being the French wanted the customs things done in French so I interpreted, none of the Americans who landed there spoke French. The first thing I did is I flew with the admin officer to the Reunion airport. The first thing that we did- the French, who dominated the islands, it was a former French colony, advised us that a number of injured Americans were going to be taken to La Reunion, which is this island near Mauritius that is a department of France now, it used to be a French colony. So, wheeling and dealing with the French in Comoros, we were able to borrow a few coffins and I brought a coffin with my baggage, if you can imagine. They had no such things as coffins because they planted folks directly in the ground. They were tracking the plane it was an Ethiopian Airways plane, which tragically crashed just about a mile from the airport when it ran out of fuel. We had a few people who we knew, including missionaries and we got information as quickly as we could. We had no representation on Comoros, of course, that was from us. GEISEL: We had a terrible plane crash, a hijacked plane that crashed in the Comoros Islands while I was there and six Americans were killed. “The Comoran government was screamingly incompetent and corrupt to boot” Go here to read more about the 1974 Pan Am crash in Bali. You can also read about the Lockerbie bombing and other terrorist incidents. The History Channel created a short video, using computer-generated images and footage filmed by tourists on a nearby beach. Geisel was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy beginning in June 2006. This was no small feat given the incompetence of local authorities, who forced delivery of the bodies to the airport in a dump truck the lack of facilities and the obstinance of one particular NSC official, which caused the Ambassador to react in a less-than-diplomatic manner. Geisel flew to the small island and coordinated efforts to get the deceased Americans returned to the United States. Of the 175 passengers and staff members from the flight, only 50 passengers, including U.S. Out of options, the captain began to circle the area, hoping to land the plane at the Comoros’ main airport he was forced to ditch the plane, crashing into the Indian Ocean at approximately 200 miles per hour. The captain secretly headed for the Comoros Islands, located between the African coast and Madagascar. The plane was nearly out of fuel but the hijackers continued to ignore the captain’s warnings. The hijackers noticed that land was still visible and forced the pilot to steer east. Instead of flying towards Australia, the captain flew along the African coastline. (Authorities later determined that the purported bomb was actually a covered bottle of liquor.) When the hijackers demanded the plane be flown to Australia, where they demanded asylum, the captain tried to explain they had only enough fuel for the scheduled flight and thus could not even make a quarter of the way, but the hijackers did not believe him. ![]() They declared in Amharic, French and English that if anyone tried to interfere, they had a bomb and they would use it to blow up the plane. The men threatened to blow the plane up in flight if the pilots did not obey their demands. One report later described them as “young (mid-twenties), inexperienced, psychologically fragile, and intoxicated.” It would turn out to be the deadliest hijacking in history until 9/11. On November 23, 1996, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 was flying from Addis Ababa to Nairobi when the plane was hijacked by three Ethiopians.
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