Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961, a Boeing 767-200ER, was hijacked on 23 November 1996,[1] en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi on an Addis Ababa–Nairobi–Brazzaville–Lagos–Abidjan service,[2] by three Ethiopians seeking asylum in Australia.[3] The plane crash-landed in the Indian Ocean near Grande Comore, Comoros Islands, due to fuel exhaustion; 125 of the 175 passengers and crew on board died, along with the hijackers;[3] the official accident report stated that of the survivors four were uninjured and the remainder sustained injuries.
The incident is one of the few documented water landing attempts of a widebody airliner with survivors.[4][not in citation given] Until the 11 September 2001 attacks, it was the deadliest hijacking involving a single aircraft,[5] and the second deadliest hijacking after the 1990 Guangzhou Baiyun airport collisions.[6]