Air France Flight 8969 was a flight that was hijacked on December 24, 1994 in Algiers, Algeria by Islamist terrorists whose likely aim was to blow up the plane over the Eiffel Tower. After a two-day standoff in Algiers in which three hostages were killed by the terrorists, a compromise was reached in which the flight would be allowed to leave Algiers – however, the plane didn’t have enough fuel to reach Paris, so instead it flew to Marseilles in order to refuel. While at Marseilles, the GIGN planned out how to storm the flight, and after delaying the flight until sunset they stormed the flight in which all of the hijackers were killed without any deaths for the GIGN or the passengers/crew.
For a long time GIGN carried revolvers rather than semi automatic pistols. The reasoning was (partially) that in a situation like this you want to avoid throwing a lot of lead around if at all possible.
A32Q
Air France Flight 8969 was a flight that was hijacked on December 24, 1994 in Algiers, Algeria by Islamist terrorists whose likely aim was to blow up the plane over the Eiffel Tower. After a two-day standoff in Algiers in which three hostages were killed by the terrorists, a compromise was reached in which the flight would be allowed to leave Algiers – however, the plane didn’t have enough fuel to reach Paris, so instead it flew to Marseilles in order to refuel. While at Marseilles, the GIGN planned out how to storm the flight, and after delaying the flight until sunset they stormed the flight in which all of the hijackers were killed without any deaths for the GIGN or the passengers/crew.
Actual footage of the raid can be seen here, while an article about the flight can be found here (Google Translate) and a Mayday episode covering this flight with interviews of the people involved in this can be found here.
InfamousConcern
For a long time GIGN carried revolvers rather than semi automatic pistols. The reasoning was (partially) that in a situation like this you want to avoid throwing a lot of lead around if at all possible.