On 23 November 1996, the aircraft serving the flight, a Boeing 767-200ER, was hijacked[1] en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi[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, including the three hijackers, died.

[2] Except for a short period between May 1991 (1991-05) and February 1992 (1992-02) when it was leased to Air Tanzania, the airplane spent its life in the Ethiopian Airlines fleet.

[2]: 3 At about 08:29 UTC,[2]: 3  when the aircraft, referred to as Zulu by Ethiopian Airlines' pilots after the last letter of its registration,[5] was 20 minutes into the flight, three Ethiopian men charged the cockpit and hijacked the aircraft after taking an axe and a fire extinguisher from the cockpit.

[2]: 1  Ethiopian state-operated radio later identified the hijackers as two unemployed high-school graduates and a nurse; their names were Alemayehu Bekeli Belayneh, Mathias Solomon Belay, and Sultan Ali Hussein (they did not say who had which description).

[3] Leul tried to explain they had only taken on the fuel needed for the Addis Ababa to Nairobi sector and thus could not even make a quarter of the journey to Australia, but the hijackers did not believe him.

[5] One of them pointed to a statement in the fleet page of the airline's in-flight magazine that the maximum flying time of the 767 was 11 hours.

Leul secretly headed for the Comoro Islands, which lie midway between Madagascar and the African mainland.

[5] The plane was nearly out of fuel as it approached the island group, but the hijackers continued to ignore the captain's warnings.

Out of options, Leul began to circle the area, hoping to land the plane at the Comoros' main airport.

Leul took this opportunity to make use of the aircraft's public address system and made the following announcement:[2]: 8 Ladies and gentlemen this is your pilot, we have run out of fuel and we are losing one engine [at] this time, and we are expecting [a] crash landing and that is all I have to say.

We have lost already one engine, and I ask all passengers to react ... to the hijackersHearing this, the lead hijacker returned to the cockpit and knocked Leul's microphone out of his hand.

While still fighting with the hijackers, he tried to ditch the aircraft in shallow waters 500 yards (460 m; 1,500 ft) off Le Galawa Beach Hotel, near Mitsamiouli at the northern end of Grande Comore island.

The engine acted as a scoop and struck a coral reef, slowing that side of the aircraft quickly and causing the Boeing 767 to suddenly tilt left.

[11] Many passengers died because they prematurely inflated their life jackets in the cabin,[9] causing them to be trapped inside by the sinking plane.

Island residents and tourists, including a group of scuba divers and some French and Indian doctors on vacation, came to the aid of crash survivors.

She said that she had begun taping because she initially believed that the 767 formed a part of an air show for tourists.

[2]: 66 Many of the passengers survived the initial crash, but they had disregarded, did not understand, or did not hear Leul's warning not to inflate their life jackets inside the aircraft, causing them to be pushed against the ceiling of the fuselage by the inflated life jackets when water flooded in.

[17] Among those killed was Mohamed Amin, a wartime photojournalist and publisher of Selamta, Ethiopian Airlines' in-flight magazine.

Yonas fought the hijackers while he himself was bruised and bleeding, giving time for Leul to land the airplane.

[21] It was also featured in a 2010 episode of the Biography Channel series I Survived..., in which a survivor told his story of what happened on the plane.