On 24 July 1987, Air Afrique Flight 056, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 operating the Brazzaville–Bangui–Rome–Paris service was hijacked and diverted to Geneva Airport.

[2] The aircraft involved was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, MSN 46890, registered as TU-TAL, that was manufactured in 1972.

[4][5] The hijacker was 21-year-old Hussein Ali Mohammed Hariri, a Lebanese Shiite who had ties to Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

[8] Hariri boarded the flight carrying a pistol and an explosives belt with 500 grams of TNT.

Hariri hijacked the flight after it departed Rome Fiumicino Airport and demanded the aircraft to be flown to Beirut along with the release of terrorists Mohammed Ali Hammadi, the lead hijacker of TWA Flight 847, and his brother Abbas Ali Hamadei, aged 22 and 26 respectively.