Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961

This is the biblical man, 1996.

The wheels of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 were freed from the runway at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to make the two and a half hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya.

There were 175 passengers and crew on board the Boeing 767 piloted by the very experienced and capable pilot Captain Luli Bato.

For the 42-year-old pilot with over 11,500 total hours in the air, this flight must have seemed like a walk in the park for such a capable captain.

Right.

Today, we are unpacking the case styles and the harrowing source material covering Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961.

And this goes so far beyond a standard aviation accident.

Oh, absolutely.

And 99% of the time, those protocols exist for a very good reason.

They are written in blood, and they do keep us safe.

But Flight 961 is the ultimate edge case.

It is.

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.

On November 23, 1996, the Ethiopian Airlines flight 961 had to connect Ethiopia to the Ivory Coast.

The first 20 minutes went as planned.

And then I saw a guy sort of floating up quietly and slowly up the way and I said, uh oh, this looks like some sort of coordinated Effort must be a hijack.