Mayday (2013) s02e03 Episode Script

A giant aircraft stands on the tarmac at Marseilles in France.
It's been taken over by hijackers who are preparing the worst terrorist atrocity the world has so far seen.
GUNSHOTS This will become a blueprint for defeating a terrorist hijacking.
With eyewitness testimony and video recordings, this is the inside story of the hijacking the world forgot.
THEME MUSIC It's Christmas Eve 1994.
An Air France jet is on final approach to Algiers Airport.
It's the early morning flight from Paris to this former French colony on the north coast of Africa.
The plane is an Airbus A300 with a crew of 12 on board.
Three greens.
This is no ordinary landing.
Algeria is in a state of civil war.
The area around the airport has been the scene of fierce fighting.
There's a very real threat of missiles being fired at the plane as it comes in to land.
TRANSLATOR: The flights to Algiers are only done by volunteers because of the terrorist threat.
We're all aware of it.
We accept the risk.
So dangerous is it that Air France, the French state airline, has asked its government if it really needs to continue these flights to Algiers.
So far, there's been no reply.
100 feet.
50 feet.
20 feet.
The captain of Air France Flight 8969 is Bernard Dhellemme, a highly experienced pilot.
This is his first ever television interview.
The events are still so threatening to him that he'll only appear in silhouette.
TRANSLATOR: There were some security measures, like on any other flight, and a few extra ones, since we were in Algiers, but at my level, I had no qualms about flying there.
Even now, 10 years later, I can still say that I like doing an Algiers.
The plane will only be on the ground for the short time it takes to clean, refuel and board the passengers for the return flight.
They're mostly Algerians, but many are French, escaping for a while the perils of life in Algeria.
Three years earlier, Islamic fundamentalists had won the elections there, hoping to install an Islamic state.
But then the military seized power and imprisoned their leaders.
Since then, Algeria has descended into chaos.
Boarding is nearly over, but then another sign of the fraught security situation - police board the plane for one more check.
Presidential police.
You two take the rear.
Police.
Nobody move, please.
Presidential police.
We're carrying out an identity check.
No, stay here.
We'll handle it.
It'd be best if I made an announcement.
Okay, go ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen, good day.
This is your captain speaking.
There will be a short delay while police will come through the cabin to carry out a passport check.
Please remain seated.
We apologise for the inconvenience.
We should be on our way shortly.
Passport.
Passport.
STEWARDESS: When they came towards us, they were armed, and that's really unusual.
Passports, please.
This unauthorised delay to Flight 8969 is making the military suspicious.
Algerian Special Forces, known as 'the ninjas', are already heading towards the plane.
I looked outside and I could see the Ninjas out there - the Algerian Special Forces.
I said to myself, "Why are there so many of them?" (shouts in foreign language) He shouted "infidels" .
.
and when he said that, I knew straightaway that they were terrorists - there it was.
(shouts) All of you get to the back! Hurry! - MUSIC PLAYS SOFTLY - Shut that voice of Satan! Sit down! You two, don't move.
Nobody move.
We're not the police.
We are Mujaheddin.
The men are not police, but terrorists.
They belong to a violent group of Muslim extremists.
They aim to force an Islamic state on Algeria, no matter what it takes.
And seizing the plane is part of that plan.
We will succeed! STEWARDESS: When that happened, it was like a rock falling.
Like lead.
I don't know which.
It was horrifying.
Look at this! This is a very powerful bomb.
There are others just like it ready for a great fireworks show in the sky.
We are the Mujaheddin of the people! God has chosen us to die and you to die with us.
The leader, 25-year-old Abdul Abdullah Yahia, is a notorious killer.
There is nothing to fear.
God awaits us all in his heavenly paradise.
Outside, news spreads quickly and reporters arrive at the scene.
In Paris, the French Prime Minister is urgently recalled from his Christmas holiday.
It's an international crisis.
TRANSLATOR: I spent the whole afternoon on the phone trying to find out exactly what was going on.
It was pretty confused.
The Algerian authorities were determined to get tough, and it was difficult to discuss the problem with them.
Give me your jacket, Captain.
Back in Algiers, the terrorists decide to put on the flight crew's uniforms to confuse any army snipers.
Meanwhile, in the cabin, one of the terrorists is not happy with what he sees.
Cover your head.
Cover your head more.
You too.
TRANSLATOR: Their Islamic customs were not being respected.
Men and women sharing the same toilets, sitting next to each other, and above all, women with their heads uncovered.
That was intolerable for Lotfi, and it threw him into a rage.
Lotfi's character is very peculiar.
- We called him 'the Madman', because really he was always on a - knife-edge.
Now, two hours into the hijacking, the terrorists want to talk to the Algerian military.
You in the tower, we have taken control of this Air France flight.
We are the Armed Islamic Group.
Do you hear me? Do you understand? Do you hear me? What's wrong with this thing if they don't hear me? They couldn't hear because you both talked at the same time.
You have to start again.
You tell them.
Do it! Air France 8969 What do you want me to say? The terrorists order Captain Dhellemme to take off for Paris.
They say they're going to hold a press conference there.
But the plane can't move.
The passenger boarding stairs are still attached and the Algerian authorities have parked vehicles to block the runways.
CAPTAIN: Air France 8969.
The passenger boarding stairs are still in place.
Please remove them immediately.
They meet with a blank refusal.
Things are starting to go wrong for the hijackers.
The Algerian strategy is not to give way on a single point.
But it's a dangerous policy, as they are soon to find out.
We're going to blow up the world! We're going to blow up the plane and everyone in it.
Do you hear me? Armed terrorists have highjacked an Air France jet at Algiers Airport.
They want to leave for Paris, but the government won't let them.
It's a stalemate for the moment.
I'll say it one more time.
Please remove the boarding stairs so that we can leave for Paris.
You think we're joking? We will show you how we are joking.
We are soldiers of God.
We are ready to die.
We will show them.
The terrorists are about to send a message to the Algerian government.
During the passport check, they've identified among the passengers an officer of the Algerian police.
PASSENGER: Then two rows behind me, there was a policeman.
TERRORIST: Can you come with us please? We need your help.
He asked the policeman to follow him.
It's crazy.
I don't know if he knew.
But he was very hesitant.
He was walking, but reluctantly, because he didn't know what was going to happen to him.
Open the door, please.
Please take our message to the government.
GUNSHO Few passengers are aware of the murder.
Nor are the pilots.
The first contact we were allowed with the cabin was when a stewardess was allowed into the cockpit to see if we wanted anything.
I said, "We'd like a glass of water," because it was hard to swallow, as you can imagine.
Our throats were very dry.
Just then, she whispered to me, "They've already killed a passenger.
" The Algerian military maintained their hardline, so the terrorists are about to raise the stakes again.
Another passenger must die.
When they came for the second passenger, we knew things were going wrong.
This passenger, he was different.
He was Vietnamese - a diplomat.
He was the real foreigner on this plane.
This passenger was not cowed by their terror, and that must've bothered them.
The Vietnamese diplomat believes that as an outsider, he's being released.
GUNSHO The stewardess went back to the cabin and came back with a bottle of water and glasses.
She served us and whispered, "It's not one now, it's two.
" Immediately I realised that we had really hit the jackpot.
As the hours go by, the crew and passengers begin to recognise the different personalities of the four men.
TRANSLATOR: To make things simpler, we gave them names.
Yahia gave us his name straightaway, so that was easy.
He was in charge.
Lotfi, the Madman, was the one who insisted we follow their laws - the one who was the most fanatic, the most fundamentalist.
The third one didn't have a name.
We called him 'Bill'.
He was a little bit simple.
We wondered what he was doing there and you could see him wondering the same thing.
It was an error in casting.
He was more of a goatherd than a terrorist.
Then, finally, there was the killer.
It was he who did the shooting.
In Algiers, it's stalemate.
Neither side is giving way.
In Paris, the French leaders are frustrated.
They believe their own Special Forces could bring the hijacking to a safe end, but the Algerians refuse to let foreign troops in to sort out an Algerian problem.
I asked the Algerian authorities extremely forcefully and urgently to let the plane take off, because I considered that it was a French plane belonging to Air France, which, although it had on board a majority of Algerians, had dozens of French there too.
So it was for us to solve the problem.
Night falls.
Air France Flight 8969 is pinned down by spotlights.
The passengers have now been held hostage for seven hours.
Initial panic has given way to a tense calm.
Few realise that two passengers have been murdered.
The crew is working hard to diffuse the situation.
All these buttons like, uh, here, for instance, it's the APU, auxiliary power unit CAPTAIN: The role of a crew in these conditions is to keep things calm to earn trust, to keep things going, which is very important.
At the start of a hostage-taking, it's always violent.
You have to buy time to calm people, to show what you're like, to find out who they are, and so on.
And then try to gain their trust.
YAHIA: We're going to blow up the world! We're going to blow up the plane and everyone in it.
Do you hear me? Do you hear me?! Through the night, the threats and ultimatums continue.
But the Algerian government will not give in.
It's a battle of wills.
CAPTAIN: At one point, it was quite calm.
I made a tour of the cabin about 2am.
There were two of them lying on the floor between door 1 left and door 1 right.
I thought, "Look, two of them are asleep, one's at the rear, "there's only one in the cockpit.
"If an assault took place now, maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
" But that's as far as it went.
After a restless night, the passengers wake up.
It's Christmas morning.
During the night, the French government has decided to send its Special Forces to the island of Majorca - as close to Algeria as possible without being accused of interfering.
Colonel Denis Favier was then a major in charge of the French counter-terrorist unit, the GIGN.
Since the hijacking, it's feared that terrorists have put a price on his head, and he doesn't want his face to be seen.
The decision was taken to send GIGN to Majorca.
An Air France aircraft was put at our disposal, identical in every respect to the hijacked aircraft, as well as an experienced crew who knew the technical side, all the details of the plane.
En route to Majorca, Major Favier's men have familiarised themselves with every detail of the A300 Airbus in the expectation that they will get the chance to attack the plane.
Back in Algiers, the terrorists release some passengers, mainly women with young children or people with serious medical conditions.
But there are still over 170 people on board, a handful for the four young terrorists.
And the passengers are not who they thought they would be.
CAPTAIN: I don't know how the terrorists organised their business.
They certainly put a lot of thought into it.
They obviously wanted to seize a symbol of France, and Air France is a national symbol.
But perhaps they didn't realise that in an Air France plane at Algiers, most of the passengers would be Algerians.
138 of the passengers are Algerian citizens.
The terrorists offer to release them, leaving only the French nationals on board - a gruesome indication, perhaps, of their final plan.
However, the Algerian passengers refuse to leave.
CAPTAIN: It's true that in Algiers they were going to free some of the passengers, and they refused to get off.
I think that one of them said, "If we leave, then afterwards they're going to kill the crew.
"So I'm going to stay.
" I think that this man was sincere.
I can't explain it, but it was the truth.
The Algerian government has another trick up its sleeve.
They've managed to identify the terrorist leader, Yahia, and bring his mother to the microphone to try and weaken her son's resolve.
- (Mother pleads indistinctly) - Ma.
Ma! - I love you, but I love God more.
- MOTHER: .
.
kill your fellow Muslims.
The Algerian government's tactic misfires.
It sends Yahia into a boiling rage.
They went and got my mother Can you imagine that? My mother! They went and dragged my mother over here! - How many French are back there? - One man and woman.
Go get the man.
What do you think they're playing at? What do they think they're doing? PASSENGER: He was furious.
He had no intention of changing his mind.
Even the love of his mother Even his mother couldn't do anything.
Until now, the terrorists haven't targeted any French citizens.
But their time has come.
Two staff members of the French Embassy are on board - a secretary and a young chef.
Okay, now we'll teach you how to play games with us.
Are you listening to me? Tell them that if they don't let the plane take off, we will kill every single passenger one by one.
Tell them.
My name is Yanic Bernier.
I work at the Embassy.
They're threatening to kill us.
If you do nothing, they'll start the executions.
You've got to do something, and quickly.
Quick as you can.
We care nothing for you.
We are soldiers of God.
We'll kill him and throw him outside the door.
You can come and pick him up.
Get me a magazine.
He was terrified, Yanic.
He was looking at me, but he was terrified.
Was he pleading with me to help him? Was he? You two - you're better off going back to your places.
Go! I was saying to myself, "No, it's not possible.
"It can't happen like this.
It's not possible.
" GUNSHO PANICKED MURMURS The 'door open' warning light confirms that the terrorists have carried out their threat.
Air France 8969.
You happy now? See what you get when you play tough? We witnessed at a distance the execution of this man.
It was something we lived through with great emotion in Paris because we were patched in to the conversations between the plane and the control tower.
The French government can no longer stand by and do nothing.
Prime Minister Balladur gets on the phone and threatens his Algerian counterpart.
I told him that I would hold the Algerian government responsible for what happened and make it known to international opinion.
Balladur's threat works.
The Algerian President caves in.
Finally, after 39 hours of terror, Flight 8969 can leave for France.
Just then, there it was.
We could leave.
In the plane, there was a joy you could not imagine .
.
and really this impression that that was it - we'd succeeded.
We had all succeeded and we were going to be saved.
We were leaving Algiers.
But there's a problem.
All the time they've been on the ground, the Captain has kept the auxiliary power unit running.
It's a small jet engine in the tail of the plane which keeps the power supply going.
It uses around four tonnes of fuel a day.
Now there isn't enough to reach Paris.
Only Marseilles, on the southern coast of France.
Navigation lightson.
Airconditioning packs Flight 8969 prepares to take off.
The crew are relieved to be going home.
Both they and the passengers believe that whatever the future holds, it can't be as bad as what they're leaving behind.
They don't realise the horror that awaits them.
After two days of terror and the death of three passengers, the Algerian authorities are allowing Flight 8969 to leave for France.
The terrorists say they're going to hold a press conference there.
Before take-off checklist completed.
But Captain Dhellemme wants an urgent word with the terrorist leader.
What is it? What's wrong? Look, since the start of this whole thing, I've followed your instructions.
You want to get to Paris to talk to the journalists.
I'll take you there.
But I wanna know if you're going to blow up the plane between Algiers and Marseilles.
Why do you ask if I'm going to blow up the plane? Because the responsibility for these passengers is on my shoulders.
No, there is nothing to worry about for you or the passengers.
We fly to Marseilles, like you said, refuel the tanks, then we go to Paris.
I give you my word.
Alright.
Good.
Let's go.
I believed them when they told me that the plane would not be blown up between Algiers and Marseilles.
I don't know if they would've given me the same answer between Marseilles and Paris.
When someone's got explosives, they're not for making a birthday cake.
STEWARDESS: We have two terrorists strapped in their seats in the cockpit and they're so excited - they're like kids, excited, happy.
What's more, they'd succeeded.
At 3:30 in the morning on 26 December, the plane approaches Marseilles Airport.
They're unaware that Major Denis Favier and his French Special Forces have got there ahead of them from Majorca and are now planning a showdown.
Normally, you arrive on ground that's held by the enemy, but here's it's the enemy who's going to arrive on ground where YOU are in total control.
And that's a key element in the success of the operation.
INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER 50 feet.
20 feet.
TYRES SCREECH STEWARDESS: For the terrorists, it's the magic moment.
We are landing in France.
We'll get fuel, we'll get provisions to take off again and go to Paris, because that's the objective.
The airport is very dark.
There are the lights of the plane and the little car - the follow-me car, which we follow, and we do not go to the terminal.
The plane is being deliberately led away to a remote corner of the airfield.
Tension is very high, because the French government has received some alarming news.
While the plane was flying towards France, we received other information according to which the terrorists planned to use the plane to carry out an attack on Paris.
So, the decision was made that no matter what, the plane would not take off from Marseilles.
No matter how high the price may be, the plane would not take off.
The French tactics will now be dictated by Major Favier.
His plan is to wear the terrorists down.
Whilst always appearing conciliatory, the French will spin out negotiations as long as possible.
They know that Yahia and his men must be tired.
The hijacking has now gone on for almost two days.
Air France 8969, we require immediate refuelling.
27 tonnes! 27 tonnes.
The terrorists have learnt from the flight crew that 27 tonnes of fuel will fill the tanks far more than the nine tonnes needed for the journey to Paris.
It appears to confirm the intelligence report that the plane is to be used as a firebomb.
They say it's not possible, uh .
.
because of the killings.
Because of what happened in Algiers.
It's in all the papers.
The workers who do the refuelling are afraid.
They won't come near the plane.
Tell them we want to go now.
We'll do our press conference in Paris.
Air France 8969.
They want to leave for Paris right away.
They wish to hold a press conference in Paris.
They say, "Why go to Paris "while all the international press has come here to Marseilles?" They're all here.
Why do a press conference in Paris? There's no point.
We can do it here on the plane.
Major Favier has baited the hook.
Will Yahia bite? Tell them we want CNN.
Tell them we want CNN.
Air France 8969.
They want to speak to CNN.
The terrorists agree to a press conference aboard the plane, little realising that it's all part of a clever plan.
Tactically, this press conference was important because it enabled us to get some of the passengers moved to the rear of the plane.
The negotiators asked that the front of the plane be cleared for the press conference.
The real reason is to create a clear area for the French Special Forces when they storm the plane.
Because what the terrorists don't realise is that the plane's doors can be opened from the outside.
Are they coming? No.
Not yet.
By now, the plane has been sitting on Marseille's taxiway for 12 hours.
The French Special Forces know how many terrorists there are and where they are.
It's believed the French Special Forces planted microphones on the fuselage of the plane.
Now they're waiting for the sun to go down, to take advantage of the dark.
On the plane, they know nothing of this.
They're still waiting for the press to arrive.
Tower 8969.
Everything's ready here.
You can send the press now.
8969.
What dowhat do you What do you mean they're not ready? No, no, no, no, no.
You said they were ready over an hour ago and you were going to get them.
Come on.
There's not much time left.
There must be hundreds of journalists there.
This will be the biggest scoop of their careers.
They're up to something.
We can't stay here.
I assure you, it's Captain, move the plane over there.
- I promise you, we'll be - Move it right now.
Do it.
Move the plane there, where the other ones are.
We'll be fine Move the plane! Go over there where the other ones are! Do it! Do it! Let's go.
(sighs) Start engines.
Suddenly, all Colonel Favier's plans are in disarray.
Yahia, the terrorist leader, now has the initiative.
TRANSLATOR: Tactically for us, the situation was very bad.
Our positions were based on the plane being parked at point A, and all of a sudden it's at point B.
So we have to reorganise very quickly.
Armed terrorists have highjacked an Air France jet.
By now, the plane has been sitting on Marseille's taxiway for 12 hours.
Captain, move the plane over there.
Captain Dhellemme is forced to park right at the foot of the tower, close to the terminal and other flights.
If they blow up the plane now, the casualties could be enormous.
Tell them it's too late now.
There won't be a press conference.
It's too late.
It should've been done.
Tell them to fuel the tanks.
We're leaving.
They have until 5:00.
At 5:00, we're taking off.
Tell them, Captain.
Do it! I've had it! Do it! Air France 8969 Major Favier is having his men picked up as fast as possible to move to new positions.
He puts snipers on the terminal roof, where they'll have a view of the cockpit.
He only has a few minutes to set up his emergency plan - a cavalry charge of passenger boarding stairs.
Three air stairs and 30 men.
This is the plan.
Penetrate by the two rear doors with two teams of 11 men each at the rear right and rear left doors.
And then a penetration by a smaller team of eight men at the front right door, to gain control of the cockpit since we know that the terrorist leader is in the cockpit.
Our intention is to cut off the cockpit from the rest of the plane.
By 5:00, no fuel has been delivered.
The authorities have no intention of allowing the plane to take off.
5:00 comes round, and there it's the moment when Yahia has to do something.
(passengers mutter fearfully) Yahia enters the cabin to choose his fourth victim.
But he seems reluctant.
STEWARDESS: He chooses a member of the crew, the youngest, the most foreign, who had made the mistake of telling him he was an atheist.
(sighs) I don't wanna do this.
But I've got no choice.
STEWARDESS: I don't know if he changed his mind, but he kept putting off this execution.
So instead of that, he fired on everything around.
GUNSHOTS The hijackers know they're in the endgame.
But then they discovered there was a public address, and they started reciting verses from the Koran.
It was very difficult, because it was the prayers for the dead.
There was silence and all of a sudden it was a state of panic.
(recites in French) The terrorists know the French negotiators are in the control tower.
They decide to send them a message.
(fires gun and yells) LEGORJUS: One of the terrorists opened the side window of the cockpit and hosed down the control tower.
The glass shattered all around us.
We were literally machinegunned.
Since we had landed in Marseilles, there had been some moments of tension, but nothing like what seemed to be about to happen.
We're going to succeed in our mission, Captain.
Don't worry about that.
Major Favier has been given carte blanche by the French Prime Minister, Edouard Balladur.
He decides the moment has come to act.
When the terrorists started firing with an automatic weapon on the tower, there was danger inside the plane, so we now had justification for an armed attack.
That attack was carried out from the air stairs, which are mobile vehicles.
(passengers gasp) They're coming! They're coming! They're all coming! (shouts) At that moment, everybody understood - them and us - it was the beginning of the assault.
The cavalry charge is under way.
This is actual footage of the attack.
FAVIER: There are eight of us on the front right air stair.
The first air stair gets to the aircraft.
There's a small problem with the height, as it was a little bit higher than the door.
The door hits the top of the air stair, a slight step back, the door opens, the air stair touches the plane, and the group goes in.
STEWARDESS: Then, it's the apocalypse.
GUNSHOTS, SCREAMS MAN: Get down! Get down! Don't move! Then the group that has gone in comes under a deluge of fire from the terrorists, who shoot at everyone who enters.
An extremely murderous fire.
There's not a moment's doubt about the nature of this gunfire - they are shooting to kill.
At the rear of the plane, the other two squads of Favier's men enter.
SCREAMS AND GUNSHOTS CONTINUE So I hear, "Hands on your head, don't move, hide.
"Get down as low as you can.
" GUNSHOTS AND SCREAMS CONTINUE I just wished to escape.
The situation we were in was extremely violent so I pulled the overcoat I had over my head so I wouldn't see the trace of bullets whizzing past, nor what was going on around.
Hundreds of bullets are whistling through the cabin.
Grenades are exploding.
There's smoke and confusion everywhere.
CAPTAIN: I was in a rather bad spot, so I tried to make myself as small as possible.
You stop breathing and you imagine that you're hard enough to stop the bullets.
The snipers on the terminal roof can see the terrorists in the cockpit, but frustratingly, can't get a clear shot.
The copilot is blocking their view.
But that problem is about to be solved.
Actual video footage shows the copilot, Jean-Paul Beauderie, falling onto the hard concrete.
Yet he still manages to stagger away to safety.
It gives the snipers the chance they've been waiting for.
GUNSHOTS, GLASS SHATTERS Move! Go, go, go! At the rear of the cabin, the French Special Forces is evacuating the passengers through a hail of gunfire.
But cabin steward Kristoff Moran finds himself unable to escape.
I tried to take with me a woman, a passenger who'd been sitting next to me, but she was too fat - she could not come.
So we just held hands.
Unbelievably, only a few minutes after the assault began, most of the passengers have been rescued.
By now, only one terrorist is left alive, but he's going down fighting.
CAPTAIN: There was only the flight engineer and me left in the cockpit.
We looked at each other, and there's just this one terrorist.
He looks at us, one after the other.
His three colleagues are here dead, or nearly so.
Out of spite, he could have killed both of us.
He didn't.
What more can I say? FAVIER: I think that after 54 hours, there is mutual recognition and "respect" between the terrorists and the hostages.
Yes, bonds were created in this drama.
And I think these bonds were activated and that they perhaps contributed to saving the lives of some members of the crew.
The French news footage captures amazing scenes of the battle.
A GIGN man is blasted out of the plane by gunshots.
GUNFIRE The final surviving terrorist holds them at bay for almost 20 minutes, but his time and his ammunition are running out.
GUNSHO The flight engineer and I looked at each other.
We knew exactly the situation we were in.
As long as there were gunshots, we knew we could die.
But once it stopped, or when we thought it had stopped, then we said, "Alright, it's over.
" But it's not over yet for the captain and his flight engineer.
The GIGN are not sure who were the terrorists and how many are still alive.
Everyone is suspect.
The battle around the cockpit has been so fierce that everyone believes the flight crew are dead.
The French Special Forces suspect that any survivors may be terrorists in disguise.
The flight engineer is hustled off the plane and handcuffed.
Get up.
Hands on your head.
I'm the captain of the plane.
I will get out.
But not with my hands on my head.
I would never have left the cockpit with my hands on my head.
After all I had been through, I would not be punished like a child.
When we saw Bernard and Alain come out, we couldn't believe it.
Alain was handcuffed and his shirt was covered in blood.
He said, "I'm deaf! I'm deaf!" But we said, "Yes, but you're alive!" We told them, "He's our flight engineer.
Let him go!" It was incredible.
For 20 minutes, the gun battle has raged on board the crowded aircraft.
Hundreds of shots have been fired, numerous grenades exploded.
Yet all 173 passengers and crew have survived.
Captain Dhellemme himself escaped with bullet wounds to his right elbow and thigh.
CHARLES PASQUA: The crew had a specific responsibility - the duty to save the hostages and to safeguard the plane.
The crew in general, and the captain in particular, they all rose to the occasion.
Nine of the 30 GIGN men have been wounded, one seriously.
When I assessed the gravity of the GIGN men's injuries, and when we learned that none were fatal, then, yes, I could consider that the operation, overall, had been a success.
Out of the 161 passengers who survived the hijacking, only a few have suffered slight injuries - a huge relief to the French Prime Minister.
BALLADUR'S TRANSLATOR: I cannot say that I was calm that day, but I considered that there was no other decision to be made than the one I took.
So the only thing that was left for me was to hope that things would unfold well.
And as a matter of fact, they unfolded exceptionally well.
I would not have dreamed that they would go that well.
All the French Special Forces and the crew members received high national honours for their courage.
STEWARDESS: For a long time, I kept seeing the faces of the three dead passengers that I couldn't save.
Then when the time of the medals came, I realised that I'd helped save 170 people.
It's a lot more gratifying, and it allowed me to mourn and get over it.
I don't wear the medal, but I'm proud of having it, and I consider that we deserved it.
We only did what we were supposed to - our job.
It was a textbook mission, one of the most successful anti-terrorist operations ever carried out.
But the traumatic experience will never leave the survivors.
Stewardess Claude Burgniard was thanked by Air France but never worked for them again.
Kristoff Moran suffered the same fate.
Since this horrific experience, his outlook on life has changed radically.
He now works for a charitable organisation.
Captain Dhellemme eventually returned to flying duties.
After a further nine years of service, he's recently retired from Air France.
Later, a former leader of the Algerian terrorist groups, Omar Chiki, confirmed that the plan had been to blow up the plane over the Eiffel Tower, the symbol of the French nation.
Hundreds might have been killed when the plane crashed down onto the crowded streets of Paris.
They never tried again, and the world would forget this hijacking .
.
until seven years later.
STEWARDESS: I went to do some shopping and bumped into a friend, who said, "A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.
" I went home and stayed sitting in front of the television for 24 hours.
I couldn't move or eat or do anything.
All those images came back to me, and I asked myself, "Is that what was supposed to happen to us?" I was convinced that the terrorists wanted to crash the plane over Paris.
To them it would've been a great feat - crashing a plane on the Eiffel Tower, or the Elysees Palace, would be an extraordinary feat.
STEWARDESS: Above all, I kept thinking, we had apprentice terrorists - boys who didn't understand very well what they were doing.
But voila - they taught everyone a lesson.
Captioned by the Seven Network Captioned by the Seven Network