Qualla: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961: Introduction

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. The three young men who seized Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 on November 23, 1996, carried a fire axe, a fire extinguisher, and a whisky bottle they claimed was a bomb. They demanded the Boeing 767 fly them to Australia for asylum. Captain Leul Abate, a veteran pilot with over 11,500 flight hours, tried to explain a simple fact: the aircraft had only three and a half hours of fuel remaining, not nearly enough to cross the Indian Ocean. The hijackers pointed to the route map in the inflight magazine, insisting the plane could fly for eleven hours. They did not understand the difference between range and fuel load. That misunderstanding would kill 125 people.

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Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961: A Captain's Quiet Deception

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Procolotor, CC BY-SA 3.0. Flight 961 had departed Addis Ababa bound for Nairobi with 163 passengers and 12 crew. After the hijackers took control, Captain Abate faced an impossible situation: comply with a demand that would guarantee fuel exhaustion over open ocean, or stall for time and find land. He cho...

Image: Procolotor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961: Seventeen Minutes of Fuel

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. As the Boeing 767 approached the Comoros, fuel gauges told the final story. Both engines flamed out in sequence, and the aircraft began gliding. Abate aimed for Prince Said Ibrahim International Airport on Grande Comore, but a physical struggle with one of the hijackers in the co...

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Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961: The Water and the Life Jackets

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. The Boeing struck the water at high speed with its left wing low, cartwheeling across the surface before breaking apart. Hotel guests and local fishermen watched from the beach, then rushed into the water to pull survivors from the wreckage. Of the 175 people aboard, 50 survived ...

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Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961: The People on Board

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. Among the dead was Mohamed Amin, one of the most important photojournalists of the 20th century, whose 1984 footage of the Ethiopian famine prompted a global relief effort and inspired the Band Aid and Live Aid concerts. Amin was reportedly standing near the cockpit in the final ...

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Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961: What Remained

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. A memorial service was held at Galawa on November 30, 1996. Captain Leul Abate, who survived the crash, received the Flight Safety Foundation's Professionalism Award for his extraordinary airmanship under impossible conditions. The ditching of Flight 961 became one of the most st...

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