90 Die as Hijacked Airliner Crashes Into Indian Ocean

In one of history’s deadliest acts of air piracy, an Ethiopian jetliner with 175 passengers and crew plunged into the Indian Ocean on Saturday after running out of fuel as the hijackers apparently tried to conduct negotiations by radio. Reports from the scene said at least 90 people were killed.

Two of the hijackers aboard the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 survived as the jetliner crashed into waters off the Comoro Islands east of Mozambique, a witness said, and were fished out and arrested by local police.

At least 54 people survived, local officials and news reports said. But the death toll, estimated at 90 by nightfall, seemed certain to rise.

The jetliner crashed three miles short of the international airport serving Moroni, the capital of the Comoro Islands, and 100 yards from the Hotel Le Galawa, the largest beachfront resort in the former French archipelago. The hotel, which is about 25 miles north of the capital, dispatched divers, staff members and guests in pleasure boats to hunt for survivors.

The aircraft broke into two pieces when it slammed into the ocean, apparently during a belated approach to the airport. Three hours after the crash, a pilot who flew over the scene saw bodies bobbing on the water’s surface.

By evening, the remains of at least 90 victims had been recovered, Dr. Abdul Hakim, a physician at a Moroni hospital, said after visiting the scene on the north coast of Grande Comore Island.

But the physician said he “doubts greatly that other survivors would be found.”

Ethiopian Airlines confirmed that the captain and one other crew member were among the survivors. The plane was carrying 163 passengers and 12 crew members, airline officials said.

The motive for the hijacking was unclear.

In Washington, a State Department official confirmed that several Americans were on board the downed plane but declined to comment further. “We do know there were several American citizens on board, but until we have obtained accurate information and have notified the families, we can’t comment,” department spokesman Christopher Bush said. “The information is confusing because there are a number of different reports.”

Bush said the department is planning to dispatch an interagency team of U.S. officials to the crash site “to provide assistance concerning American passengers and to support the Comoron authorities.” The team will consist of representatives of the State Department, the National Transportation Safety Board and the FBI, he said.

“The hijacking appears to be an act of air piracy and a crime under [U.S. law] since there were American citizens on board,” Bush said. “FBI agents will therefore accompany the U.S. team to the Comoro Islands to offer help to the Comoron authorities in the investigation.”

Saturday’s hijacking was among the most lethal acts of air piracy ever committed.

In 1990, a hijacked Chinese domestic airliner crashed into two other planes while trying to land at Canton’s airport, killing 128 people. In 1977, 100 people were killed when a Malaysian Airline System 737 en route from Penang Island to Singapore was hijacked, then exploded in midair and crashed over Malaysia. The left-wing revolutionary group Japanese Red Army was believed to have been responsible.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 961 was hijacked soon after it took off from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, Saturday morning on what should have been a route slicing across Africa’s midriff to Abidjan in Ivory Coast via Nairobi, Kenya; Brazzaville, Congo; and Lagos, Nigeria.

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According to Israel Radio, 11 hijackers--a number much larger than that later named by other sources, including survivors--commandeered the jet before it arrived at its first scheduled stop in Nairobi.

The hijacked aircraft then entered Tanzanian airspace south of Kenya and turned east across the Indian Ocean heading for the Comoro Islands, 250 miles off the African mainland.

“We have very little knowledge of who the hijackers are or their demands,” Ahmed Kellow, general manager of Ethiopian Airlines, said as the drama unfolded. The hijackers reportedly claimed to be members of the Ethiopian political opposition.

The plane’s pilot, Leul Abate, said there were three hijackers and described them to the Reuters news agency at the El Maarouf hospital.

“They may be either Ethiopian, Djiboutian or Somalian--they spoke French,” the 42-year-old Ethiopian pilot said. He said the three hijackers forced their way into the cockpit and beat co-pilot Yonas Mekuria, 35, before throwing him out into the main body of the aircraft.

One hijacker was wielding a small ax, apparently one kept in the plane for use in emergencies. A second was wielding a small fire extinguisher from the plane.

The third said he had a bomb in one hand although the pilot could not identify the object as such.

They wanted to go to Australia, but did not make any other demands, the pilot said. At one point, one hijacker attempted to fly the plane himself and took the headset from the pilot, with the result that he could not contact the control tower as the plane approached the Comoro Islands.

State television in Mauritius, another island nation in the Indian Ocean, reported that the hijackers wanted to touch down there and that the airport in that country east of Madagascar was put on full alert. It was not immediately clear whether the plane was refused permission to land.

According to the Israeli monitoring reports, the hijackers wanted to stop in Mauritius before continuing on to Australia.

“The plane skimmed the ground, went over the Galawa Hotel . . . made a big noise and crashed,” a witness told Reuters news service.

Frederick Chretien, the hotel’s manager, said one of the survivors spoke of a pair of hijackers who had been desperately trying to negotiate by radio as the Boeing’s fuel tanks ran dry.

“He said there were two [men] quite panicky and trying to get in contact with the Ethiopian government and they couldn’t get through, and that’s why they started to turn in the middle of the Indian Ocean, until there was no fuel,” Chretien told the BBC.

Airline officials said the hijackers were believed to be transit passengers from Bombay, India, but said that their identities had not been confirmed.

After the chaos and terror of the Boeing’s plunge into the ocean, some of the passengers recognized two hijackers among the survivors and pointed them out to police so they could be arrested, said Christophe Kostopoulos, a Greek guest at the Galawa Hotel.

Times staff writer Warren Vieth in Washington contributed to this report.