It was November 23, 1996. Most people boarding the Boeing 767 in Addis Ababa were just trying to get to Nairobi. They didn’t know they were stepping into one of the most bizarre, tragic, and poorly understood moments in aviation history. When we talk about the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 hijackers, the conversation usually shifts immediately to the grainy tourist footage of the plane hitting the water near the Comoros Islands. But the real story—the actual behavior and identity of the men who caused that crash—is way weirder than a typical hijacking narrative.
These weren't seasoned terrorists. They weren't political masterminds.
Honestly, they were three young men in their mid-twenties who had no idea how a plane actually worked. This lack of knowledge is exactly what turned a standard hijacking into a mass-casualty event. They claimed to have an explosive device. They said there were eleven of them. Both were lies. It was just three guys—Alemayehu Bekeli Belayneh, Mathias Solomon Belay, and Sultan Nurhuseyn Nasir—and a bottle of whiskey.
The amateur mistake that killed 125 people
Most hijackers have a clear, if often horrific, goal. They want a prisoner release, money, or a political statement. The Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 hijackers wanted to go to Australia. That’s it. They were seeking political asylum and, for some reason, decided that the best way to reach Perth was to take over a flight that barely had enough fuel to reach Kenya, let alone cross the entire Indian Ocean.
Captain Leul Abate tried to explain this.
He told them, repeatedly, that the plane would run out of gas. He showed them the fuel gauges. He pointed out that they were currently flying over the ocean with nowhere to land. The hijackers didn't care. They thought he was lying. They had seen a magazine article or a brochure that said the Boeing 767 could fly for 11 hours. What they didn't understand—and what Abate couldn't convince them of—was that the plane only flies for 11 hours if you actually put 11 hours of fuel in it before takeoff.
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They were basically arguing with a pilot about physics while holding a fire axe. It’s terrifying to think about. You have a professional at the controls and three guys who are increasingly drunk on duty-free liquor making life-or-death navigation decisions based on a brochure.
Who were the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 hijackers?
We know their names now, but at the time, they were a mystery. They had escaped from prison in Ethiopia shortly before the flight. They were desperate. They were young. They were also incredibly violent during the flight. Reports from survivors, including the incredible accounts from Captain Abate, describe a chaotic cockpit where the hijackers were constantly hitting the flight crew.
They used a fire extinguisher and a fire axe as weapons.
They weren't using sophisticated jargon. They weren't making demands to the tower. They were just yelling. One of the men even sat in the co-pilot's seat and started fiddling with the controls. Imagine being a passenger and realizing the person "flying" your plane is a drunk fugitive who doesn't know what a throttle is.
Why the "bomb" was the biggest lie
The lead hijacker carried a small covered object. He claimed it was a bomb and threatened to blow the plane out of the sky if anyone resisted. This kept the passengers and crew at bay for hours.
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It was a bottle of whiskey.
Wrapped in a cloth, it looked enough like an explosive to work. By the time the plane began its final descent toward the water because the engines had flamed out, the hijackers were reportedly still unfazed. They didn't seem to realize they were dying until the very last second.
The final moments and the Comoros crash
As the fuel ran out, the engines stopped. The first one went, then the second. The "Ram Air Turbine" deployed—a small propeller that drops out of the belly of the plane to provide just enough hydraulic power to move the flaps and rudder. It’s a last-resort tool.
Captain Abate was a hero. He tried to land the plane at the Prince Said Ibrahim International Airport in the Comoros, but the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 hijackers were fighting him for the controls until the end. Because they were wrestling with the yoke, the plane tilted. The left wing hit the water first, causing the aircraft to cartwheel and break apart.
125 of the 175 people on board died.
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The hijackers died too. They never made it to Australia. They didn't even make it to a runway. They died in the wreckage of a plane they forced into the sea because they refused to believe the "Empty" light on a dashboard.
What we can learn from this tragedy
This wasn't a failure of security in the way we think of it today. Pre-9/11, the philosophy for hijacking was "comply and land." The idea was that if you just did what they said, they’d eventually let you go once the plane was on the ground. Flight 961 changed that mindset. It proved that sometimes, the people taking over the plane are so incompetent that "complying" is actually a death sentence.
If you're looking for actionable insights on how aviation changed because of these three men, look at cockpit doors.
While 9/11 was the final nail in the coffin, the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 hijackers provided the early evidence that the cockpit needed to be a fortress. You can't have a situation where a drunk person with a fire axe can override a captain's navigation.
Modern safety takeaways:
- Secondary Barriers: Many airlines now use secondary barriers so that even when a pilot goes to the restroom, the cockpit isn't exposed.
- Fuel Management Protocols: International regulations on "reserve fuel" became even more stringent to ensure that even with a forced diversion, a plane has a "bingo" point it cannot cross.
- Psychological Profiling: Security started looking for "desperation" cues rather than just "terrorist" cues. These men were fugitives, not operatives.
To really understand the legacy of this flight, you have to look at the survivors. Some survived because they ignored the flight attendants' instructions to not inflate their life jackets inside the plane. When the cabin flooded, those who had inflated their vests were pinned against the ceiling and drowned. Those who waited until they were outside the wreckage lived.
It’s a grim reminder that in a crisis, the "official" rules and the "hijacker's" rules can both be wrong. The only thing that mattered that day was the cold, hard reality of the fuel gauge—a reality the hijackers simply chose not to believe.
To further understand the technical side of ditching a commercial airliner, researching the "Hudson River Landing" provides a stark contrast in how things go when the pilots have full control of the aircraft versus the interference seen in the 1996 Ethiopian tragedy. Examining the NTSB reports on water landings offers the most accurate data on survival rates and the physics of impact.