Palestinian militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked Lufthansa Flight 181. Boeing 737 carrying 86 passengers and five crew members. They demanded the release of 11 imprisoned members of the German Red Army Faction (RAF), an allied West German far-left militant group.
The hijackers diverted the flight to several locations, including a refueling stop in Aden, Yemen, where the hijackers executed Captain Jürgen Schumann. The plane ended in Mogadishu, Somalia, where on October 18, 1977, the West German counter-terrorism unit GSG 9, stormed the plane, killing 3 of the hijackers, capturing the fourth one, and rescuing all 86 passengers and four crew members; ending the hijacking. In response to the raid's success and the deaths of their comrades, the German Red Army Faction (RAF), murdered the kidnapped German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer, whose abduction had preceded the hijacking.
