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Air France Flight 8969

24 Dec 1994 · 24–25 December: Houari Boumediene Airport, Algiers, Algeria, 26 December: Marseille Provence Airport, Marseille, France

Airbus A300B2-1C · Hijacking by Armed Islamic Group of Algeria

From Houari Boumediene Airport (ALG) to Paris-Orly Airport (ORY)

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Event

Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
Accident
Event fatalities
7 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
Occupants
236
Survivors
229
InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
25 · 9 on the ground
OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
Airline

Airbus A300B2-1C

Flight
AF8969
Aircraft type
Airbus A300
Category
Airplane · from aircraft type
RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
F-GBEC
Operator
Air France
Onboard fatalities
7
Route
From Houari Boumediene Airport (ALG)To Paris-Orly Airport (ORY)

Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article's coordinates are more than 250 km from Houari Boumediene Airport, the place its infobox names.

From the Wikipedia article

Air France Flight 8969 (Operation Rock Climber) was an Air France Airbus A300 flight that was hijacked on 24 December 1994 at Houari Boumediene Airport, Algiers. The militants murdered three passengers and their intention was either to detonate the aircraft over the Eiffel Tower or the Tour Montparnasse in Paris. When the aircraft reached Marseille, the GIGN, a counterterrorism and hostage rescue unit of the French National Gendarmerie, stormed the plane and killed all four hijackers. The incident led to Air France halting their flights to Algeria until 2004, two years after the end of the Algerian Civil War.

Background

Algeria was in a state of civil war at the time of the hijacking. Aircraft flying to Algeria faced the possibility of missile attacks. As a result, Air France's flights to Algeria had crews composed entirely of people who volunteered for the route.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Air France Flight 8969” (revision 1375183767, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article

Sources

Wikipedia article: Air France Flight 8969
Article
Air France Flight 8969
Revision
1375183767 · 2026-09-16 · retrieved 2026-09-18
Wikidata
Q1574009
Licence
Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
Record
Wikipedia article "Air France Flight 8969" (page 265494, revision 1375183767)
Date
Wikipedia infobox: date
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site
Map position
Wikipedia article coordinates and infobox site disagree
Aircraft, operator and route
Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
Operation
airline flight number in the infobox
Fatalities
Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
Ground fatalities
not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
Summary
Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
  • Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.