Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 was a flight that flew on an Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Nairobi, Kenya - Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo - Lagos, Nigeria - Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire route. November 23 is the 327th day of the year (328th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 38 days remaining. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Ethiopian Airlines is the national airline of Ethiopia. ... Map of Ethiopia highlighting Addis Ababa (in red). ... Nairobi is the capital city of Kenya. ... Image of Kinshasa and Brazzaville, taken by NASA. Brazzaville is the capital and largest city of the Republic of the Congo and is located on the Congo River. ... View of Lagos Island Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria. ... Abidjan is the largest city and former capital of Côte dIvoire. ...

When ET-AIZ, the Boeing 767-260ER operating the flight, entered Kenyan airspace on 23 November 1996, three men hijacked the airplane and demanded that the plane be flown to Australia. As the amount of fuel was not enough to reach even a quarter of the way to Australia, the pilot attempted to keep close to land. At first he attempted to follow the African coastline, but as the land stayed visible the hijackers noticed and forced the pilot to steer east. The pilot then, secretly, headed for the Comoros Islands, lying between Madagascar and the African mainland. The Boeing 767 is a commercial passenger airplane manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. ... November 23 is the 327th day of the year (328th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 38 days remaining. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Aircraft hijacking (also known as Skyjacking) is the take-over of an aircraft, by a person or group, usually armed. ... The Union of Comoros (until 2002 the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros) is an independent country at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean, between northern Madagascar and northern Mozambique. ...

The plane began to run out of fuel as it approached the island group. The pilot attempted an emergency landing at the airport at Grande Comore. However, the aircraft ran out of fuel before it could land. The captain then attempted to ditch into shallow waters 500 meters off of Le Galawa Beach, near the capital of the Comoros Islands, Moroni. While there is a theory that the hijackers beat the flight crew as the plane came closer to the water, causing it to bank left, the plane turned because the captain wanted to land the plane parallel with the waves, instead of crashing into them. The left engine and wingtip struck the water, causing the aircraft to break up and crash. Island residents and tourists, including a group of scuba divers, came to the aid of crash survivors. Map of Grande Comore. ... Moroni is the largest city of the Comores and since 1962 has also been its capital. ... SCUBA is an acronym for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. ...

One of the first theories to emerge about this crash was that one of the kidnappers had been drunk, and tried to take control of the airplane seconds before it crashed. That theory, however, was never proven.

This is perhaps one of the most well known hijackings due to the fact that a vacationing couple who was videotaping their holiday recorded the low path the jet took and the eventual ditching into the water. The video would later serve as an important tool in studies of aviation crashes and procedures.

Six of the twelve crew members and 119 of the 163 passengers died. All three hijackers are presumed dead. The three hijackers claimed to be prisoners tortured by an unnamed government, all of whom later escaped prison and decided to set a record by flying to Australia. Several passengers have backed this up.

This was one of only a few large airliner crashes into water that yielded any survivors. Both the captain and co-pilot of the flight have received aviation awards.

See also

• List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners

Citing the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, an aviation accident is defined as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, and in which any person...

External links

• Accident description on the Aviation Safety Network
• CNN Article - Contains videos of the crash