Terrorist Attack at Vienna Airport 40 Years Ago: Three Passengers Died

The mastermind behind the attack was the globally wanted terror leader Sabri al-Banna - better known as Abu Nidal.

Three Passengers Killed in Shooting at Vienna Airport

Two passengers - a Viennese and an Israeli - were killed in the shooting in front of the check-in counter of the Israeli airline "El Al". Over 40 people suffered partly severe injuries as nearly 200 shots were fired and four grenades exploded. Another passenger from Austria succumbed to her severe injuries weeks later. The terrorists intended to hijack the plane with the surviving passengers as hostages and blow it up over Israel, but they underestimated the security measures. These were incomparably less strict than today.

The injured attackers fled and sped off in a car stolen in front of the airport building. After a wild chase on Federal Highway 9, the terrorists were finally apprehended by the police near Fischamend. In another shootout, a terrorist, 25-year-old Abdel Aziz Merzoughi, was killed. The other two severely injured Palestinians, also 25-year-old Tawfik Ben Ahmed Chaovali and 26-year-old Mongi Ben Saadaoui, surrendered. In 1987, both were sentenced to life imprisonment by a Vienna court.

Attacker Chaovali Died in 2024 in Stein Prison

Saadaoui behaved inconspicuously in prison and was allowed to leave Austria after 22 years. Chaovali, however, made further headlines: In 1995, he escaped from the Upper Austrian prison Garsten, but was recaptured after just two hours. After another escape attempt in 1996, where he and an accomplice also took three women hostage, the man, still considered dangerous, was sentenced to an additional 19 years in prison. He died in September 2024 in Stein Prison.

The three terrorists were Palestinian refugees from the Lebanese camps Sabra and Shatila. The Palestinian refugee camps in the southern urban area of Beirut gained tragic notoriety in 1982 after a gruesome massacre of civilians by Christian militias during the Lebanese Civil War. The young men had been trained in Lebanon for their mission in Vienna.

Simultaneous Attack on Rome-Fiumicino Airport

The Abu Nidal group carried out a similar attack on Rome-Fiumicino Airport simultaneously with the attack in Vienna-Schwechat. In the armed assault on the check-in counters of El Al and the US airline TWA, 16 people were killed and around 70 injured. Israeli and Italian security forces were able to shoot three of the four attackers and capture the fourth one injured.

The Abu Nidal terrorist group was founded in 1974 by the Palestinian top terrorist Sabri al-Banna (1937-2002) alias Abu Nidal ("Father of the Struggle"), after he himself was expelled from Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Abu Nidal was considered one of the most brutal terrorists in the Arab world. A total of 900 people died from attacks by his operatives, who often rested in Vienna. In 2002, Abu Nidal was shot dead in his apartment in Baghdad. The Iraqi authorities officially stated at the time that it was "suicide during a police interrogation."

Three Attacks in Austria

In Austria, the organization carried out three attacks: In May 1981, they murdered the Vienna city councilor Heinz Nittel (SPÖ); in August of the same year, a gun attack on the Jewish city temple in downtown Vienna killed two people. The third was the attack in December 1985 at Vienna-Schwechat Airport.

The internationally most consequential action of Abu Nidal was the Lockerbie bombing of 1988, to which the group confessed in 2002. Apparently on behalf of the Libyan leadership, the group is said to have blown up a jumbo jet of the US airline Pan Am on December 21, 1988, killing all 259 passengers and eleven people on the ground.

(APA/Red)

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