VALETTA – On this day in 1985, gunmen hijacked EgyptAir Flight 648 en route from Athens to Cairo.
Ten minutes after takeoff, three Palestinian members of Abu Nidal hijacked the aircraft, the same group also responsible for the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 a year later. The terrorists, declaring themselves the Egypt’s Revolution over the intercom, were heavily armed with guns and grenades.
When the plane lands in Malta, Egyptian commandos storm the aircraft, but 60 people die in the raid, making it one of the deadliest such incidents in history.
