Lufthansa Flight 181 was a Boeing 737-230C jetliner (reg. D-ABCE) named the Landshut that was hijacked on the afternoon of 13 October 1977 by four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who called themselves Commando Martyr Halima. The objective of the hijacking was to secure the release of imprisoned Red Army Faction leaders in German prisons. In the early hours of 18 October, just after midnight, the West German counter-terrorism group GSG 9, backed by the Somali Armed Forces, stormed the aircraft in Mogadishu, Somalia, with 86 passengers and four of the total five crew rescued. The rescue operation was codenamed Feuerzauber (German for "Fire Magic"). The hijacking is considered to be part of the German Autumn. Lufthansa crew Two flight crew and three cabin crew operated the round-trip flight from Frankfurt to Palma de Mallorca: (37) Captain. Born in Colditz in 1940, a former Luftwaffe Lockheed F-104 Starfighter pilot. On 16 October at Aden Airport, after being permitted to leave the aircraft to check the plane's airworthiness, he went to talk to the Yemeni airport authorities. He subsequently boarded the plane after returning and was then murdered by terrorist leader Akache. Posthumously awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit 1st class, he was survived by his wife and two sons. The building housing the Lufthansa Pilot School in Bremen was named in his honour, as was a street in the Bavarian city of Landshut. He is buried in Babenhausen in Hesse. Jürgen Vietor (35) Co-Pilot. Born in Kassel in 1942, a former German Navy pilot. He piloted the Landshut from Aden to Mogadishu. He returned to work just six weeks after the hijacking, and the first aircraft he was assigned to was the Landshut which had already been repaired and returned to service. He retired in 1999. He was also awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class. He subsequently returned the medal in December 2008 in protest over the release on probation of the former Red Army Faction terrorist Christian Klar, who had been involved in the kidnap and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer in 1977. Hannelore Piegler (33) Chief flight attendant. She was in charge of the cabin crew, servicing the first class passengers. Subsequently she published a book on the hijacking entitled 'A Hundred Hours Between Fear and Hope'. Anna-Maria Staringer (28) Flight attendant. She had her 28th birthday on the