Original subtitles

A crippled airliner falls toward the Indian Ocean.

It has no fuel.

No engine power at all.

Both engines are out. That's it.

The captain struggles to do what no one has ever done before...

...safely land a passenger jet on the open ocean.

3000.

We're not getting any oxygen! We have the terrain alarm.

- Aero Peru 603. - We are in an emergency.

The Comoros islands.

A remote holiday playground in the Indian Ocean.

Days here are spent playing in the sand

and splashing in the gentle waves.

But in late 1996,

the peace of the Comoros islands is shattered.

A plane is speeding toward the beach.

It's a passenger jet hundreds of miles off course.

There has been no explosion, no mechanical failure,

yet the jet is falling out of the sky towards the ocean.

Ethiopian Airlines flight 961

is on a routine trip from Addis Ababa to the Ivory Coast.

The Captain is Leul Abate.

At 42 he's an extremely experienced pilot.

7300 kilograms.

Centre tank... zero...

He has more than 11 000 hours of flying time to his credit.

Total fuel is 14,500 kg.

Check.

Ethiopian flight 961 will stop briefly in Nairobi, Brazzaville and Lagos

before it reaches its final destination of Abidjan.

The plane has just enough fuel for the first leg of the trip.

It will get more in Nairobi.

Less fuel on board makes the plane lighter, increasing efficiency.

Captain Abate and his co-pilot Yonas Mekuria

expect their day's work will be over in about 12 hours,

when they land in the Ivory Coast. - All clear.

That day was a bright day, clear skies, everything was fine.

The passengers on board 961 are a mix of Ethiopians and travelers

from other countries flying for business and pleasure.

Michael Adenyo, seated in economy class,

is a Kenyan businessman on his way home to Nairobi.

I spent the whole of Friday trying to get on that flight,

calling the airline every hour or so.

I remember Friday night, about 11 o'clock

I called them again and they said,

'Look, just come to the airport.

We'll see if we can find a seat for you.'

So, I sometimes feel I put myself on that aircraft.

Near the front of the plane,

American Frank Pancho Huddle is also getting settled in.

He's the United States consul general in Bombay.

My wife Pom and myself, decided to take a trip to Africa,

and go on safari.

And I wanted a daytime flight, because it was safer.

So I picked Ethiopian Airlines,

which had a good reputation.

It was one of the two carriers in all of Africa that was FAA certified.

A few rows ahead of them is Mo Amin,

a legendary news cameraman and journalist.

He's a well-known personality, especially in Ethiopia.

In 1984, Amin captured images which shocked the world.

His pictures of the Ethiopian famine

prompted an outpouring of aid

which helped pull Ethiopia back from the brink of starvation.

Mo Amin was, I think,

the most famous news cameraman of his time

and also one of the strangest of characters...

Amin is known for never backing down in a fight.

He had stuck his nose and his camera,

into conflicts across Africa.

While filming in Ethiopia,

he had even lost an arm in a bomb blast.

Today, he's returning home to Nairobi after a brief business trip.

By the time all the passengers are on board,

flight 961 is carrying 175 people.

Not only is Captain Abate used to this route,

but he's also very comfortable with this aircraft.

Vee-one.

He and other members of Ethiopian Airlines call it "Zulu".

As the plane climbs into the sky,

three Ethiopian men have settled into their seats.

All are in their mid-twenties.

The plane is bound for Nairobi,

but it's not where these passengers are planning to go.

When we took off, everything was fine...

The cabin crew called us,

she asked if we wanted to have coffee or tea or whatever...

Yeah, thank you. Coffee?

Make it two.

The plane is flying at 12,000 meters

when the three young Ethiopians make their move.

I heard a noise at the back...

there was somebody shouting and, when I looked back,

he was running up towards the front,

pushing the air hostesses away.

There were two guys zipping down the plane,

yelling something incomprehensible ...

And then a guy sort of gliding down silently

came right after him, and I said,

"Uh-oh, it's a hijacking because they are coordinated."

Initially, we, we sort of just looked at each other

and wondered what was going on.

People didn't say much immediately.

There was some kind of noise in the cabin

and I heard the cockpit door slamming open, just bang.

Three men barge through the door

and arm themselves with the cockpit's fire axe and fire extinguisher.

Get out.

Get out!

There was, you know, ...

a little confusion up in the front as if they were,

you know, attacking the pilots...

There were three guys, they were shouting.

They just came straight to the co-pilot and they started hitting him, get up...

There's eleven of us.

If you don't do what we say,

we'll blow this plane out of the sky.

I told them, "Okay, don't hurt him.

I'll do whatever you want."

Passengers near the front of the plane are concerned...

but have no idea what's going on.

Captain Leul Abate is facing the hijackers alone.

Unlike most pilots though,

Abate has some experience in a situation like this.

He has been hijacked twice before.

The first hijack was a local flight.

And then two hijackers who had a hand grenade

came into the cockpit and forced us to fly to Nairobi.

Abate's second hijacking was just a few years later

when he was piloting a 737.

The hijackers again held the hostess hostage

and they came into the cockpit; they told me it was a hijack

and they wanted to fly to Sweden.

No one had been hurt or killed in either of those incidents.

In both cases, Captain Abate had landed safely.

But the turbulent political situation in the region

means hijacking is an unpleasant reality.

From 1990 to 1996, 10 Ethiopian airlines' planes had been hijacked.

This time though, the hijackers make a very unusual request.

- Fly to Australia. - What?

Fly us to Australia!

We don't have enough fuel to get to Australia.

It's too far.

We can go to Nairobi, or Zanzibar,

or Dar es Salaam then refuel.

And then go to Australia.

In fact, the jet took off with just 3.5 hours worth of fuel.

But the hijackers don't know that.

They've been reading the in-flight magazine

which tells them the maximum flying time of a 767.

Eleven hours.

It won't take more than 10 hours to get to Australia.

But we don't have 10 hours of fuel.

- It says 11 hours! - We don't carry that much fuel.

We only carry what we need.

They thought I was bluffing...

They were convinced that the airplane was able to fly to Australia ...

Abate is shocked.

No one else on the plane knows what the hijackers are demanding.

If he does what they say...

his plane will crash in the ocean.

If he doesn't...

they say they'll blow it out of the sky.

An Ethiopian Airlines jet has been hijacked in the skies above Africa.

The hijackers want to be flown to Australia.

It's a 10-hour flight,

but the plane took off with just three and a half hours of fuel.

The passengers have no idea what the hijackers are demanding.

Word spreads of the hijacking, but not of their destination.

Flight attendants feed some of the children on board

and keep working as best they can.

We started to ask the stewards what was going on

and they indicated that it was a hijacking.

Nervous and uncertain,

passengers wait to see what happens next.

It was as if nobody wanted to sort of rile the hijackers.

Because they hadn't slapped people around,

it wasn't a sort of a Middle Eastern style

where they shoot somebody in the head to make a point or...

They were basically leaving the passengers alone

provided that we didn't do anything.

And that was enough for us.

This is how much fuel we have...

If we had fuel for 11 hours, it would say 60,000 kilograms.

But we don't carry that much fuel.

We only carry what we need.

The hijackers seem to think that Abate is bluffing.

We have a bomb.

Yes...

and if you don't do what we tell you to...

we'll blow this plane out of the sky.

Abate knows he's trapped.

If he fights the hijackers, they may blow up his plane.

If he does what they want, he'll run out of fuel.

My feeling tells me that it's not a real bomb

but there's no way that I can challenge that.

One of them has a fire axe...

That was good enough to do serious damage.

If I'm not alive, everybody's not alive, that's it.

I want to talk to the passengers.

After about half an hour, the hijackers came on the public address system,

and they made an announcement

that they have taken over the plane...

...and if anybody tried anything,

they had one bomb and they were going to blow it up.

The announcement is made in Anharek, French, and English.

The policy at that time was we should follow the hijackers' instruction.

That was before 9/11,

and every action taken is to be taken on ground, not in flight.

Pilots are trained to fly not to fight.

We were following sort of the standard script, as it were, for passengers,

which was to stay out of it, keep quiet, keep cool,

let them sort it out, get the plane on the ground.

Some people said, "Oh, maybe we'll go to Sudan,

land there, negotiate.

And maybe they'll release us after that.

Or, if not, move on to some... some other place."

But it was all speculation.

For years, Clint Van Zandt was the FBI's Chief hostage negotiator.

What made this hijacking so unique

is that the pilot in command

had been the victim of two previous hijackings.

His success rate was 100 per cent.

He probably had a predisposition to:

this will end like the other two did,

I'll be able to get it on the ground,

the authorities will deal with it.

But Captain Abate knows this situation is different.

Instead of another destination in Africa,

the hijackers want to go to Australia.

Abate knows that heading out into the open ocean

could be a death sentence.

Captain Abate decides to get help.

I have to call air traffic control.

Why?

Because they will be asking why we are changing direction.

Tell them you've been hijacked

and tell them where we are going.

Addis area Control, this Ethiopian 961...

Since the plane is still over Ethiopia,

Abate contacts Addis Ababa area control.

Addis Ethiopian 961,

there are passengers in the cockpit.

Say it again, 961.

Addis 961, we have been hijacked.

We have orders to divert to Australia.

961, Australia, understood.

Confirm your souls on board.

Souls on board: 175.

961, 175 souls on board.

As the aircraft flies south,

Addis Ababa passes the captain over to Nairobi air traffic control.

ETH Nairobi Centre,

confirm you are going to land Australia.

Gentlemen. We can't make Australia.

We have only two hours of fuel.

We can't make it Australia...

We will make a water landing.

ETH 961.

Confirm you can't divert to Mombasa?

They refused to land anywhere other than Australia

so we have no choice,

except when we finish our fuel, we will land on water.

But with two hours of fuel you can't make Australia,

why don't you land Mombasa?

Okay. Just a minute.

Abate connects the Air Traffic Control to the cockpit's speakers.

Okay, I just wanted our hijackers to hear what you are communicating,

and if you have anything to say, go ahead and tell them.

Okay, I am advising you

that with two hours fuel,

you will be unable to reach your destination.

And probably you will have to land on the water.

The solution is for you to land in Mombasa.

Go ahead.

The hijackers of ETH 961, if you have copied, go ahead...

Waiting to talk. Standby.

Do you want to talk to them?

Okay, they say they don't want to talk.

They are not willing to negotiate on any terms.

Confirm they are ready to land in the ocean and drown?

Do you have another alternate aerodrome?

Please advise.

I have no alternate aerodrome.

Sir, I am in a very tight corner. - Enough talk!

We will not negotiate.

That's bullshit, it's bullshit!!

They said follow our instructions.

If you don't, we'll blow the airplane up.

That's it.

Ethiopian 961, Nairobi Control, do you read?

There would be no further communications

between the aircraft and air traffic control.

An hour has passed since the beginning of the hijacking.

No one knows exactly what's going on in the cockpit.

For the rest of the passengers and crew, the flight has settled into an uneasy routine.

There was a lot of time, people were just whispering

and we were trying to figure out where we were going,

where they were taking us, what's going to happen.

And at least the people I was sitting next to,

we thought that we would go from airport to airport

and there would be negotiations and finally, we would be released.

We went generally south.

And there was an eerie, edgy, nervous calm.

Nobody's talking much,

people are in their own little individual worlds.

With only a fraction of the fuel needed to get to Australia,

Abate decides to defy the hijackers.

Without their knowledge he continues south,

instead of east towards Australia.

I started following the African coastline

because in case anything happens

we'll have a place to...

ditch or land safely

because most of the cities are by the coastline.

But with a glance out the window,

the hijackers suddenly realize they've been tricked.

I still see land! Turn the plane!

Now, Captain Abate has no choice.

He turns his plane east, over the open ocean.

As the ocean unfolds below him,

the Captain begins forming another plan.

I had no charts nearby

because it was on the co-pilot's side

so I had a small atlas...

so I took that atlas and I saw the Comoros islands.

Nestled between the African continent and the island of Madagascar

is their only hope: the Comoros Islands.

A remote holiday playground in the Indian Ocean.

I had no idea what that place was.

I never heard of the word Comoros before...

I just headed towards it ...

it was a guess.

The Comoros Islands are his last chance to land safely.

We sat... we just sat and sat for hours.

I tried to read the newspaper but couldn't concentrate on it because I was nervous.

I wondered how much extra fuel we had.

Because the rule of thumb is you have enough for the alternative airport

and then you're supposed to have an extra 45 minutes of fuel beyond that.

So roughly three hours or so of fuel they had to have.

So after we'd flown three hours, I began to get nervous.

Suddenly an alarm breaks the tense silence in the cockpit.

It's a warning that the plane has less than 30 minutes of fuel left.

I need to tell the passengers.

There's no need.

You know what I'm going to tell them?

It's out of my control: the aircraft is going to crash.

- Do you want to die? - We're going to die anyway!

So... shall we kill you? No more talking.

Don't worry, I have the axe.

Please,

at least let us attempt a controlled landing.

I will die along with him.

I will show him that I have guts.

It's finished.

We will die together.

With almost no fuel,

Abate decides to make his stand.

We came over the island.

By then fuel was running out

and I decided, "No, we should not go any further than this one"

and I started circling that area.

But how can he convince the hijackers to let him land?

He'll have to find an answer soon,

or flight 961 will crash into the sea.

For three hours, Captain Leul Abate has been fighting a lonely battle.

Hijackers have taken over his passenger jet.

They want to be flown to Australia

but Abate doesn't have enough fuel.

Warning alarms are already beginning to sound.

An airport on the Comoros Islands is within reach

but the hijackers refuse to negotiate and won't let him land.

At stake: the lives of all 175 people on board.

They took whiskey from the duty-free.

They wanted me to drink actually but I refused.

Once again alarms sound.

One engine is now completely out of fuel.

It's shutting down.

Captain Abate is quickly running out of time.

With the airplane being at 39,000 feet in cruise flight,

the airplane is not going to run out of gas

with each engine simultaneously.

There'll probably be a bit of a lag,

which in this case there was.

The right engine stopped functioning first.

First thing I noticed, the engines sound different...

'cause there's only one engine running.

It had a much deeper sound.

Abate follows standard emergency procedures.

He starts the APU, or auxiliary power unit.

It's a generator that can supply extra electrical power when one engine is lost.

Most of the passengers don't know how serious the situation is.

But Captain Abate knows the plane is in grave danger.

I lost the engine at 39,000 feet.

I cannot keep flying at 39,000 feet with engine failure.

With thrust from only one engine,

the aircraft immediately slows down.

At a lower speed, the wings don't provide as much lift.

Abate must descend to an altitude where the air is thicker.

Denser air means the wings can provide enough lift

to keep the aircraft flying level.

The plane continues to descend.

Even with only one engine, and despite the drop in altitude,

the tiny Comoros Islands are still within reach

of the crippled airliner.

There is an airport at the capital, Moroni.

If he can convince the hijackers, Abate could land there.

It's gone down a thousand.

When the engine stops, it descends.

It will descend whether you like it or not.

Alone in the cockpit, Captain Abate takes a dangerous chance.

He explains the situation to everyone on board.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot...

We have run out of fuel

and we are losing an engine at this time;

we are going to make a crash landing...

When the pilot came onto the public address system,

and said that he had no alternative but to crash land,

that is when we, it actually dawned on us and we realized

that this was a life and death situation.

Captain Abate also makes a desperate call for help.

We have already lost one of the engines.

He wants the passengers to overpower the hijackers,

so he can land the plane.

I ask all passengers to react to the hijackers. Thank you.

Captain Abate knows the call for help is a huge risk.

Even though I was expecting some kind of movement in the cabin

but... I had to do my job.

I was doing what I had to do, you know,

keep the airplane in control, fly it.

While Captain Abate waits for action,

the passengers are more confused than ever.

He said, "React against the hijackers."

Which is an odd phraseology.

But nobody reacted.

I think part of it was the way he said it.

It was not sort of a normal way in English

that you would ask someone to take on the hijackers.

But he also was trying to do it so they wouldn't notice what he was saying.

At least one of the passengers does understand.

As a news cameraman,

Mo Amin has never shied away from a challenge.

Amin makes his way to the economy section in the rear of the plane.

Here is a man who had spent 20 or 30 years

in some of the most difficult and dangerous war zones of the world,

who'd been beaten up, who'd been shot at,

who'd been jailed.

He was a kind of alpha male, if you know what I mean.

He could talk anybody into anything.

He made like he was going to the bathroom,

then he came back and he started talking to people

who were three or four seats ahead of me.

And, from his gestures and actions,

he was trying to get us to stand up against the hijackers...

With your help, we can take them!

There's only three of them. Come on!

Come on!

Not knowing what would happen, not knowing what these people were capable of doing...

and of course, the fact that they had indicated

that they would blow up the plane if anybody tried anything.

You always, always have to measure,

"Am I going to make the situation better

or am I going to make it worse?"

Who's ready to take the chance that your precipitous action

against the hijacker

might not cause him to set that explosive device off

and take the life of everybody on board the plane?

In the end, the passengers choose not to act.

Captain Abate is still alone against the hijackers.

In the cockpit, the hijackers try to take control,

in a vain attempt to keep the plane in the air.

It's descending.

Don't worry, I am not the one who is doing that.

Inadvertently one of the hijackers disconnects the autopilot.

The plane swerves wildly.

Don't move! Listen.

I'm not applying any motion.

The aircraft is doing it by itself.

He was trying to fly the airplane, he was trying to disconnect the autopilot,

all sorts of things.

It's all over, we will drop in the ocean.

31!

Abate makes another attempt to explain

the desperate situation to the hijackers;

perhaps they will finally allow him to land at the nearby airport.

This is zero.

And this is coming to zero.

I prayed to God, I wish I wasn't in this situation.

Now I am in it

but help me to save these people.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

please sit down and fasten your seat belts.

Don't panic. Please fasten...

I was starting to say, "Oh, I love you, dear, it's been a good ride."

And my wife is sort of unsentimental, psychiatric nurse.

And she tells me, "Get up, stand up,

get our bag down from the overhead,

pull out your extra glasses, put them in your pocket,

and get some food for me

and I want this, this and this, and food.

She carefully picked things that wouldn't make her thirsty.

She said there's not going to be any meal service once we hit the water.

Finally the plane runs out of fuel.

- So you're killing everyone. - That is all. Sit down!

From now on you can't do anything to me.

What?

From now on, you can do nothing to me.

The other engine stopped

and it sort of went quiet.

Then, it started to get hot within the cabin,

the lights started to flicker...

and, gradually,

it went out.

That's it. Both engines are out.

That's it. Is this what you wanted?

This 40-million-dollar aircraft

has become a 100-tonne glider.

The plane is out of fuel, and Abate is out of options.

A crash landing in the sea is all but inevitable.

Both engines are out. That's it.

Is this what you wanted?

Almost four hours after take-off

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 has finally run out of fuel.

Hijackers have taken over the plane

and have forced the captain to fly over the ocean.

The loss of engine power starts rippling through the plane.

As well as driving the jet through the skies,

the engines supply power to most of the electrical and hydraulic systems.

Without the engines the computer screens, automatic pilot

and many other functions of the plane stop working.

Although the engines are now useless,

a low-tech backup system allows the pilot to retain some control.

The Ram Air Turbine, or RAT,

is the last line of defense when all the engines fail.

A small trap door automatically opens,

and the turbine, a small propeller, pops out.

The rushing air turns the propeller like a windmill,

generating just enough electrical power

for basic flight instruments and controls, including airspeed.

Since it was power off,

that means there was no electrical or hydraulic power,

the controls were heavy.

The turbine does not provide enough power for Abate to operate the flaps,

which would help slow the plane down for landing.

Wherever he lands,

Captain Abate will have to do so at a dangerously high speed.

Power off landing, power off ditching.

Nobody's trained in the world.

Flying over the water, you need accurate instruments.

I didn't have any of the instruments.

Without engines,

a large passenger jet can glide 18 and a half kilometers

for every 1000 meters of altitude it loses.

At 6,400 meters,

the Ethiopian Airlines plane can glide for nearly 120 kilometers

before it hits the ground.

One of the things that the captain's got to worry about now

is with both engines shut down, the airplane's going to go down.

It's just a matter of where, and that's going to be controlled by the pilot flying.

It's an extremely dangerous situation

few pilots in the world have ever faced.

In 1983, another 767 pilot found himself in a similar predicament.

Air Canada flight 143 ran out of fuel

and landed on an abandoned Air Force base,

sustaining only minor damage.

In the right circumstances,

a safe landing without power is possible.

Captain Abate hopes to land at the airport in the Comoros Islands.

But struggling against the hijackers on the final turn

he loses his bearings and cannot visually locate the runway.

I was within the vicinity of the airport

so I was keeping the airport in my sight all the time.

Then through the struggle, I lost my position.

I lost where I was.

In the critical seconds it takes to find the airport again,

he loses too much altitude

and doesn't know if he can make it to a runway.

A water landing is now his only option.

He knew that he was going to have to ditch the airplane.

He was going to have to put the airplane down in the water.

How he was going to do that was now a different plan

because he'd never been trained to do that, not with two engines out.

Landing on the ocean

is even more dangerous than bringing a plane down on the ground.

If you were trying to crash land on the ground,

the airplane would have a surface to slide across.

That surface does not exist

when you're ditching the airplane in water.

The airplane is going to touch down on the water

and then at some point, it's going to dig into that water.

When that happens, the airplane's going to try to stop instantly.

In trying to bring his plane down safely,

Abate faces unique challenges.

Planes such as the DC-9 have flat bottoms,

which would skim the surface of the ocean on landing,

slowing down more gently.

But the engines on Abate's 767 hang below the body.

They could act as enormous scoops,

grabbing hold of the water

as the rest of the plane plows ahead.

The force will tear the jet apart.

It was getting hotter and hotter, so we started to sweat.

Because I guess the air conditioning system was not working

since there was no power.

And that's when the people started to scream,

started to panic...

looking for life jackets.

Praying to Jesus, praying to Allah...

Some ladies were asking people to go and plead with the hijackers,

not realizing that it wouldn't make any difference at this particular time.

We didn't have any fuel and that was it, we're going down.

But I guess at that time, your hope is all you have.

We're descending fairly rapidly, the plane is lurching wildly.

A couple of times they're fighting up in the cockpit for the controls.

It's my responsibility,

the passengers must know what's going on.

Descend and increase the speed.

It doesn't make any difference.

Please.

All the same, we are going to die.

Please maintain calm.

Prepare for an emergency landing.

Put on your life jackets but do not inflate them.

Some passengers either don't hear the Captain's instructions

or decide to ignore them.

They inflate their life jackets.

I heard a pop, pop, pop, pop back in the tourist class.

And everybody panicked and inflated their life jackets.

I actually got up on my seat

and told people,

"Don't inflate your life jackets inside the plane."

At the front of the plane, Mo Amin tries a last ditch attempt

to negotiate with the hijackers.

No, sit down.

Mo had a desire to dominate every situation he was in.

In a situation like that, it would be Mo talking to the hijackers,

he would be negotiating with the hijackers, he would be, I'm sure,

trying to get the other passengers to face these guys down.

But Amin's efforts have no effect.

The hijackers are determined to let the aircraft crash.

Then, for the first time since the hijacking began,

Captain Abate gets some help.

The controls... I need help...

They're too heavy.

We told them, "Guys, now we are in the last point,

you should sit down and fasten your seat belts." They refused.

I never thought I would ditch in my lifetime.

I never thought I would lose two engines

and ditch in the middle of the ocean.

I never thought anything like that would happen in my life.

The last few seconds, I remember looking out both sides of the window.

I could see water.

And, then, I took the crash landing position.

All these things go through your mind.

I guess, having been brought up in a Christian family,

I said my last prayers.

And said, um, "Well,

if there is Heaven,

I hope I get out on the right side of things."

Outside in the window, you could see land at the last minute,

and we realized that we were...

for the first time that we were near land but over water.

I used to love that airplane; we used to call it Zulu.

In my heart I was talking to it.

So I said, "Zulu, you can make it now,

you should be able to make it, I know you can make it."

You know, I was talking to it.

On the beach, tourists are stunned.

The horror of the crash is captured on one of their video cameras.

The plane is flying at more than 370 km per hour when it hits the water.

The first bump was fairly gentle.

And I sort of breathed a sigh of relief. Wow!

As soon as we touched the water, it was quite violent.

Then the second bump, like a 30-mile-an-hour auto accident.

I had a feeling the plane was not going to hold.

The third bump, I said, "Uh-oh, I'm dead."

I blacked out.

Oh my God! Oh no!

The ditching was very rough.

The aircraft broke apart into three pieces.

The cockpit broke off and the tail end broke off,

so we went, started to go down.

There was water gushing in on both sides.

Passengers who survive the initial impact

struggle to escape from the shattered wreckage.

As water pours in,

people who have already inflated their life jackets become trapped.

The water pushes them towards the ceiling of the plane.

In that kind of panic, uh, people, um, do all sorts of things

that, maybe, are not rational.

The life jackets make it very difficult to swim under water.

Many passengers can't escape the sinking cabin.

The aircraft was full of water...

I have no fear of water, having done competitive swimming in school.

And then I went for my seat belt.

And I couldn't find the buckle.

So, I moved my hand down to my knee and found it.

I pulled it open and I pushed out.

And I looked at the back of the aircraft.

I could see some light at the end

and I decided to swim out in that direction.

As I swam out, one of the passengers trying to get out of the seat grabbed my leg...

I said to myself, "Oh, my God, this can cause me to drown."

But I decided not to fight back

and they pulled themselves out and they let go of my leg.

And, then I continued to swim out to the back of the aircraft,

and swam to the surface.

I was really exhausted, I felt very tired.

And I looked up and said, "Okay, could this be heaven?"

'Cause I wasn't really sure whether I was alive or...

or... or dead.

I was trying to tell the co-pilot to get out,

then he was not there.

Then I said, "Okay, then, it's about time for me to go out."

I woke up, I was floating in the water,

and I went, "Hey, I'm alive."

I looked for my wife who'd been sitting on my right and she was gone...

and my heart sank.

Then I looked to my left and she was now on my left.

She had swirled around and swapped...

We were out floating in the ocean.

You can see just what looks like an uninhabited cliff,

what might be a tropical island.

It's like a movie, you know.

When I leveled out and looked at sea level,

I saw all these boats, these tourist boats,

beautiful sails and all that and I said,

"I must still be on earth."

And I looked around me, I could see all these people, life jackets and,

bits and pieces of debris, broken seats,

floating bodies.

As I swam towards the beach, I saw this passport,

which was a Kenyan passport,

and I stopped and opened the passport

and believe it or not it was mine.

So I took the passport and folded it and put it in my pocket and continued to swim.

Oddenyu makes his way to a floating pallet of cargo

that's burst loose from the plane.

He pulls himself on top and waits for rescue.

The plane was destroyed, ripped into several pieces.

I saw things scattered around me,

the tail of the airplane far away from me...

I never expected something like could happen.

All I was expecting was to evacuate the passengers safely, and myself.

Abate swims to safety,

but he has no idea how successful he's been.

He doesn't know whether any of his passengers have survived,

or what's happened to the hijackers.

After a four-hour struggle with hijackers,

Captain Leul Abate crash lands his passenger jet in the Indian Ocean

near the Comoros Islands.

Oh, my God!

His plane is shattered.

But his skill may have saved the lives of many on board.

For those who survive the crash,

Abate's decision to ditch the plane near the shore

means that although the airliner breaks into pieces

it doesn't sink very far.

Fortunately the water was very shallow.

In some cases people were able to get out.

Locals and tourists swarm out to the downed aircraft.

A group of scuba divers, who narrowly missed being hit by the aircraft,

help with the rescue effort.

In an amazing stroke of good luck,

some French doctors are staying at the resort.

They offer immediate medical assistance.

In the end, of the 175 people on board the plane, 50 survive.

Without the actions of Abate, many more could have died.

Without power and unable to use his flaps

Captain Abate lands at 370 kilometers per hour,

over 100 kilometers per hour above the normal landing speed of a 767.

Once the captain made the decision that he had to ditch,

the best thing that he could do

was keep the airplane as close to land as possible.

Abate also tried to make the landing as smooth as possible.

At the last moment he turned the jet,

hoping to land parallel to the waves instead of crashing into them.

As soon as the plane hit the water, it was ripped out of Abate's control.

The airplane touched down left wing low,

so the left wing actually grabbed the water.

The 767's massive low-slung engine

dug into the water, spinning the plane around.

The airplane would have wanted to turn around that left wing or cartwheel.

That's a lot of energy to dissipate very quickly.

That's what caused the break-up sequence.

The airplane broke up into four or five pieces,

that's what caused a lot of the fatalities.

Panic may also have contributed to the number of deaths.

Disregarding Abate's instructions,

many passengers inflated their life jackets.

The life vest wants to keep you buoyant or try to drive you straight up,

and that could hamper and restrict

your ability to get out of your seat.

In some cases people were still strapped in their seat

when the airplane sank and they unfortunately drowned.

Mo Amin, who had tried to rally the passengers against the hijackers,

was standing up when the plane crashed.

He was probably thrown against a bulkhead when the plane crashed, dying instantly.

Mo had survived everything, he had more than nine lives

and the idea that he should just be on an ordinary, standard flight

when the kind of news story that he wasn't aware of, hadn't been assigned to,

caught up with him and to be killed in this way

has a kind of horrid irony about it.

The hijackers, who refused to sit for the landing,

also died in the crash.

In the days after the disaster,

other pieces of the puzzle became clearer.

Despite claims by the hijackers that there were eleven of them,

in fact, there were only three.

But who were these desperate men and what were their motives?

They were imprisoned, uh, thrown in jail,

persecuted and tortured by the government.

They didn't specify which government,

at least to the best of my understanding.

And that they had escaped from jail

and that they were going to make history.

They said they had friends in Australia

and they want to get united with them.

They wanted to go into a second country

where they gain refugee status and have a better living.

Before 9/11,

it was remarkably easy for hijackers to gain access to pilots...

If you don't do what we say,

we'll blow this plane out of the sky.

Despite numerous hijackings

over the previous two decades,

most airlines made no attempt to secure the cockpit.

- Do you want to die? - We're going to die anyway!

So... shall we kill you?

The hijackers of flight 961

were never linked

to any terrorist group or political organization.

Whatever their reasons,

their crime demonstrated the great danger

posed by a hijacker who places no value on his own life.

We will die together.

For years, there were people in security saying we have to strengthen that cockpit door.

We have to be able to exclude anyone

from coming through that door and getting control of that aircraft,

whatever the reason, whether the airlines didn't want to spend the money,

they didn't see it as a threat, uh... it didn't happen.

After 9/11, every aircraft now

has done that, that carries passengers,

so that has that capability of being hijacked.

Nothing is inevitable, nobody is immune to anything.

It could be one in a million but it can happen.

Both Captain Leul Abate and his co-pilot Yonas Mekuria

received many tributes for their actions on flight 961

including a Flight Safety Foundation award.

I say it's good that I'm alive,

and the world has understood what I had gone through.

Despite their ordeal,

both Captain Abate and his co-pilot Mekuria

continue to work for Ethiopian Airlines.

difuze