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Kuwait Airways Flight 422
1988 aircraft hijacking / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Kuwait Airways Flight 422 was a Boeing 747 jumbo jet hijacked en route from Bangkok, Thailand, to Kuwait City, Kuwait on 5 April 1988, leading to a hostage crisis that lasted 16 days and encompassed three continents. The hijacking was carried out by several Lebanese guerillas who demanded the release of 17 Shi'ite Muslim prisoners being held by Kuwait for their role in the 1983 Kuwait bombings. During the incident the flight, initially forced to land in Iran, traveled 3,200 mi (5,100 km) from Mashhad in northeastern Iran to Larnaca, Cyprus, and finally to Algiers.
![]() 9K-ADB, the hijacked aircraft, at Frankfurt Airport in 1992 | |
Hijacking | |
---|---|
Date | 5–20 April 1988 |
Summary | Hijacking |
Site | Arabian Sea |
Aircraft | |
Aircraft type | Boeing 747-269B |
Operator | Kuwait Airways |
Registration | 9K-ADB |
Flight origin | Don Mueang International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand |
Destination | Kuwait International Airport, Kuwait City, Kuwait |
Occupants | 112 |
Passengers | 97 |
Crew | 15 |
Fatalities | 2 (Abdullah Khalidi,Khalid Ayoub Bandar) |
Survivors | 110 |
Kuwait sent officials to negotiate with the group, but negotiations became bogged down because the terrorists refused to release the hostages. Two hostages were killed during the course of the siege, before it eventually ended in Algiers on 20 April. The hijackers – who were suspected by Kuwait of belonging to the Lebanon-based Hezbollah organisation – were given passage out of Algeria. With a duration of 16 days, the crisis became one of the world's longest skyjackings. It also inspired a brief armed siege at a high school in the United States a few days later.