December 24, 1994: Terrorists aboard Air France flight 8969 forced it to divert to Marseille Provence Airport, where they proceeded to make demands and then fire at the air traffic control tower. French authorities felt they had no choice but to call in a special unit to force their way onto the plane.
00:00By 5 o'clock, still no fuel has been delivered to Air France Flight 8969.
00:06The hijackers know the French negotiators are in the control tower.
00:10They decide to send them a message.
00:17One of the terrorists opened the side window of the cockpit and hosed down the control tower.
00:22Glass shattered all around us. We were literally machine gunned.
00:26Since we had landed in Marseille, there had been some moments of tension, but nothing like what seemed to be about to happen.
00:37We're going to succeed in our mission, Captain. Don't worry about that.
00:42Major Favier has been given carte blanche by the French Prime Minister, Édouard Balladour.
00:47He decides the moment has come to act.
00:50When the terrorists started firing with an automatic weapon on the tower, there was danger inside the plane, so we now had justification for an armed attack.
01:00That attack was carried out from the air stairs, which are mobile vehicles.
01:05At that moment, everybody understood, them and us, that it was the beginning of the assault.
01:10The cavalry charge is underway. This is actual footage of the attack.
01:15There are eight of us on the front right air stair.
01:20The first air stair gets to the aircraft.
01:24There's a small problem with the height, as it was a little bit higher than the door.
01:29The door hits the top of the air stair.
01:31A slight step back, the door opens, the air stair touches the plane, and the group goes in.
01:38Then it's the apocalypse.
01:43Get down!
01:45Get down!
01:47Don't move!
01:49And then the group that has gone in comes under a deluge of fire from the terrorists who shoot at everyone who enters.
01:55An extremely murderous fire.
01:57There's not a moment's doubt about the nature of this gunfire.
02:00They are shooting to kill.
02:01At the rear of the plane, the other two squads of Favier's men enter.
02:06Move!
02:06Go!
02:07Go!
02:07Go!
02:07So I hear, hands on your head, don't move, hide, get down as low as you can.
02:14I just wished to escape.
02:21The situation we were in was extremely violent, so I pulled the overcoat I had over my head so I wouldn't see the tracer bullets whizzing past, nor what was going on around.
02:30Hundreds of bullets are whizzing through the air, grenades are exploding, there is smoke and confusion everywhere.
02:38I was in a rather bad spot, so I tried to make myself as small as possible.
02:46You stop breathing, and you imagine that you're hard enough to stop the bullets.
02:50The snipers on the terminal roof can see the terrorists in the cockpit, but frustratingly can't get a clear shot.
02:59The co-pilot is blocking their view.
03:02But that problem is about to be solved.
03:05Actual video footage shows the co-pilot, Jean-Paul Bordurier, falling onto the hard concrete.
03:11Yet he still manages to stagger away to safety.
03:21It gives the snipers the chance they've been waiting for.
03:25The French news footage captures amazing scenes of the battle.
03:29A Xi Xi'an man is blasted out of the plane by gunshots.
03:32The flight engineer and I looked at each other, we knew exactly the situation we were in.
03:43As long as there were gunshots, we knew we could die.
03:45But once it stopped, or when we thought it had stopped, then we said, all right, it's over.
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