EgyptAir Flight 321

EgyptAir Flight 321 was a Cairo-Luxor Egyptian flight which was hijacked by three armed terrorists claiming to be from the Abd Al-Nasir Movement. After hijacking the aircraft, the terrorists demanded to be flown to Libya. The terrorists agreed to land in Luxor instead, after being persuaded that the aircraft needed to be refuelled. In Luxor, Sa'ka Forces stormed the aircraft and captured the hijackers. No passengers were injured during the operation. The terrorists were convicted and sentenced to hard labor for life.

Background

On 23 August 1976, three armed terrorists claiming to be from the Abd Al-Nasir Movement hijacked the Egyptian Cairo-Luxor flight and asked the pilot to land in Tripoli. One of the three hijackers was a 21-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Naguid, who was working in Kuwait. They demanded the release of five Libyans imprisoned in Cairo in connection with two assassination attempts. The context was the deterioration of relations between Egypt and Libya after the Yom Kippur War due to Libyan opposition to Sadat's peace policy. There had been a breakdown in unification talks between the two governments, which subsequently led to the Egyptian–Libyan War. Fifteen minutes after takeoff from Cairo International Airport, an Italian pilot called the airport to report that he had received a beam aerial from the Egyptian aircraft heading to Luxor that it had been hijacked and the flight was under terrorist control.