NBC News
Sept. 30— Most of us watched in utter shock as the terrorist
attacks played out on television. But others watched the attacks
with something more like recognition because, in fact, terrorists
had tried it before. So why wasn’t the U.S. better prepared when
they did it again? Correspondent Chris Hansen reports.
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER and Pentagon attacks with hijacked
airliners have been called “unimaginable,” “without precedent” and
“impossible to predict.” But were they? In 1994, in a strikingly similar
plan, suicidal Algerian hijackers plotted to use an Air France jetliner,
loaded with fuel and dynamite, as a deadly weapon — and to aim it at the
Eiffel Tower.
Now, for the first time since the hijacking, a crew member from that
fateful flight is speaking out. Jean-Paul Borderie was the co-pilot on Flight
8969. He says the thought of a jet flying into the Eiffel Tower seemed
unbelievable, at least until September 11.
CHRISTMAS EVE 1994
Paris, the City of Light, was at its brightest, preparing for a joyous
holiday, the boulevards glowing in anticipation. At 11:15 that morning,
1,200 miles away in Algeria, an Air France A-300 jumbo jet was preparing
to depart for the French capital. On board, 227 passengers and crew. Just
before departure, four men dressed as airport officials came and stood in
the doorway to check passports. Suddenly, there was a gunshot in the
cabin, and a passenger was killed, as the rest looked on in horror.
Ferhat Mehenny was on
Flight 8969. “After that one
gunshot, the terrorists made
themselves known, and said they
were hijacking the plane,” he
says.
The four men dressed as
airport officials were actually
hijackers, members of a fanatical
terror squad known as the
“Armed Islamic Group,” a group
terrorism experts believe has ties
to Osama bin Laden.
They roamed the aisles of the Airbus A-300, heavily armed with
machine guns, automatic pistols, grenades... and dynamite. The hijackers
released some women, children, and elderly passengers. But by
mid-afternoon, still on the ground three hours after the ordeal began,
another passenger was shot to death.
“They said they were going to kill one passenger every 30 minutes,”
remembers co-pilot Jean Paul Borderie.
A DEADLY PLAN
In this case, though, the
hijackers didn’t know
how to fly.
As the hijacking stretched into day two, Christmas Day, a third
passenger was killed aboard the parked jetliner. The pilots were in the dark
about the hijackers’ intentions, but the French government secretly began
assembling a commando team after receiving a dire warning from a secret
informant, and from some of the released hostages — the hijackers actually
wanted to fly the jet into the Eiffel Tower, and explode it over Paris.
“There was wiring and
dynamite under the seats; we
heard the terrorists planning
on blowing up the plane when
they were waiting for fuel to
come,” says passenger
Mehenny.
Blowing up an airliner
over Paris? It sounded unbelievable, but it wasn’t unheard of: in 1986,
American officials had learned that terrorists had wanted to blow up a
hijacked Pan Am flight over Tel Aviv, but the attempt was thwarted. So
French authorities knew the similar Air France threat was deadly serious.
And with passengers on Flight 8969 being murdered one by one — at this
point three had been killed — the French government decided it had to let
the plane take off.
In this case, though, the hijackers didn’t know how to fly. “Yeah, for
just a short part of this time, the rule was different; we’re in charge, in
command,” says co-pilot Borderie.
As the plane finally took off from Algiers, more than 36 hours into the
ordeal, the crew told the hijackers they needed to stop in Marseilles, 500
miles south of Paris, for more fuel.
“We thought it was better for everybody to land in France,” says
Borderie.
The French government wanted a secure staging ground for a
commando attack to end the hijacking. “We had no information about the
hour of attack, but we were quite sure they were going to make an attack,”
says Borderie.
‘They didn’t need 27
tons of fuel to reach
Paris. They were
creating a bomb.’
— COL. JOHN ALEXANDER
U.S. Army (ret.)
At Marseilles, the hijackers demanded the plane’s tanks be filled with
three times the amount of fuel they’d actually need to fly to Paris. As we
now know, in the recent attacks against the U.S., the hijackers apparently
targeted flights that would have heavy loads of fuel.
Retired Army colonel and terrorism expert John Alexander says that’s
when authorities knew what the hijackers were trying to do. “They didn’t
need 27 tons of fuel to reach Paris. They were creating a bomb.”
COMMANDOS TO THE RESCUE
As the hijacked plane sat on the ground in Marseilles, the French
government used a series of stalling tactics, lasting 14 hours, as they rushed
to reposition their commando team. Then suddenly, the hijackers sent a
threatening signal by shooting at negotiators in the control tower. The
French commandos, who’d been secretly flown in on another Air France
jet parked nearby — arrived at the side of the plane on catering equipment
and ran up the front stairs. Within seconds, as frightening images unfolded
live on French television, the 54-hour siege was about to come to an
explosive end.
“At this moment, the four terrorists were in the cockpit with us. They
killed two terrorists quickly, approximately maybe 20 seconds,” says
Borderie.
The Special Forces tossed stun grenades in the cabin to fill it with
noise and smoke, and with assault rifles firing, they shouted at passengers
to get down and crawl to the escape slides. For co-pilot Jean-Paul
Borderie, who told “Dateline NBC” he tried to keep his cool in the face of
terror, it was time to make his move. In a dramatic moment captured by
cameras, Borderie jumped more than 25 feet from the cockpit window to
the tarmac, breaking his leg when he hit the ground.
Within just four
minutes, the
commandos had killed
all four hijackers and
not one of the 177
passengers remaining
on board was seriously
injured in the raid.
“I was in the line of fire, of course, I had two terrorists at my back,
and the French troops on the other side. It was very, very dangerous,”
says Borderie.
The pilot was injured as well. But within just four minutes, the
commandos had killed all four hijackers and not one of the 177 passengers
remaining on board was seriously injured in the raid. It was one of the most
successful hostage rescues in history.
Former U.S. Ambassador for Counter-Terrorism Jerry Bremer says
Air France Flight 8969 confirmed what was seen in the earlier plot to blow
up the Pan Am Flight over Israel. “The idea of hijacking and flying a
commercial airliner into a population center was in the minds of some
terrorists,” says Bremer.
LESSONS UNLEARNED
For many security experts, the attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon are proof that we missed important lessons from Air France
Flight 8969 and failed to make proper changes in aviation security. “As a
nation, we just did not want to listen to the clues that were being presented
to us, and the people who were saying ‘this is gonna happen, it’s just a
matter of when and where,’” says retired Col. John Alexander.
Alexander says the world missed three lessons. “First of all, we should
have thought A) it can happen, and specifically, using aircraft as cheap
guided missiles. It also should have said, ‘we need to upgrade security.’”
But it now seems clear that the terrorists learned a lesson. The plot
was thwarted partly because the hijackers couldn’t fly the plane. And
federal investigators say, soon after, men with ties to Osama Bin Laden
began taking flying lessons.
Still, counter-terrorism experts caution that it’s too early to come to
conclusions about links between the Air France hijacking and the attacks
on America. “We can make a closer connection between the 1994 attack
and the September 11th attack only because we know there are
connections between the groups. Between the Algerian group, GIA, and
bin Laden’s group,” says Bremer.
But whatever the connection, the 54 hours of terror suffered by the
passengers and crew of Air France Flight 8969 will never be forgotten: |
