World News

Lufthansa aircraft, once hijacked in 1977, moved to exhibition space

Oct 23, 2024

Berlin [Germany], October 23: A German Lufthansa airliner that was infamously hijacked in 1977 has been moved into a new exhibition space on Tuesday, where it is slated to go on public display starting in 2026. The fuselage of the ageing aircraft, named the Landshut after a German town, was pulled by a lorry from a hangar at the Friedrichshafen Airport in southern Germany to a nearby hall. The aircraft was hijacked by militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on October 13, 1977 while flying from the Spanish island of Mallorca to Frankfurt. The hijackers demanded the release of several imprisoned leaders of West Germany's notorious left-wing Red Army Faction terrorist group. The hijacking was a major event in the so-called German Autumn of 1977, when West Germany was rocked by a series of deadly Red Army Faction attacks, massive police operations to stop the group and the prison suicides of several RAF leaders. The hijacked aircraft was flown to several locations. (dpa)