The Landshut hijacking was the hijacking of a Lufthansa aircraft hijacked as part of the events in the German Autumn of 1977. Palestinians hijacked the Lufthansa airliner Landshut during its flight from Palma de Mallorca to Frankfurt. The hijacking was ended in Mogadishu when German GSG 9 commandos storm the plane in an operation called Operation Feuerzauber (roughly translated into English: Operation Firemagic). Three hijackers were killed and all 86 hostages freed. The pilot was killed and only one terrorist aboard survived.
This hijacking was closely connected to another hijacking; Hanns-Martin Schleyer, then president of the German employers' association, in Cologne, had also been abducted by the RAF. The purpose of the hijackings was the release of first generation RAF members being held in prison in Stuttgart-Stammheim, Germany.
The German government under Helmut Schmidt stated they would not negotiate with terrorists and did not agree to exchange prisoners, contrary to the policy in the case of Peter Lorenz two years earlier. PFLP terrorists (Commando Martyr Halime), associated with the RAF, tried to increase pressure by hijacking the Lufthansa airliner Landshut. After several other stops and the killing of pilot Jürgen Schumann, the aircraft landed in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia.
After political negotiations with the Somali leader Siad Barré the FRG was allowed to storm the airliner. October 18, 1977, the special task force GSG-9, which had been formed after the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage crisis, stormed. All hostages were rescued. Of the four terrorists, Zohair Youssif Akache, Riza Abbasi, Nadia Duaibes were killed. Souhaila Andrawes survived.
The rescue of the hostages was followed by suicides of RAF members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe in the Stuttgart-Stammheim prison. After the suicides of the imprisoned RAF members, Hanns-Martin Schleyer was killed by second generation RAF members.
After the Landshut crisis, the German government stated that it would never again negotiate with terrorists.