1973 Rome airport attacks and hijacking

1973 Rome airport attacks
Rome Athens Damascus Kuwait class=notpageimage| Initial attack site at Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino International Airport in Rome and hijacked airliner landing sites
Location	Rome, Italy (primary) Athens, Greece Damascus, Syria Kuwait
Coordinates	41°48′01″N 12°14′20″E / 41.80028°N 12.23889°E / 41.80028; 12.23889 (Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport)
Date	17–18 December 1973 (CET / UTC+01:00)
Target	Aircraft in Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport
Attack type	Terrorism, aircraft hijacking, hostage crisis, firebombing
Deaths	34
Injured	At least 22 (including 1 terrorist)

In December 1973, a terrorist group executed a series of attacks originating at Rome-Fiumicino Airport in Italy which resulted in the deaths of 34 people.^[1] The attacks began with an airport-terminal invasion and hostage-taking, followed by the firebombing of a Pan Am aircraft and the hijacking of a Lufthansa flight.

Pan Am flight 110 was scheduled to depart from Rome, Italy and arrive in Tehran, Iran, by way of Beirut, Lebanon. On 17 December 1973, shortly before takeoff, the airport terminal and the flight aircraft were attacked and the aircraft was set on fire by armed Palestinian gunmen, resulting in the deaths of thirty persons on the plane and two in the terminal.^[2]

Following the flight 110 attack, the gunmen hijacked Lufthansa Flight 303 and killed two more people. They ended up in the custody of the Kuwaiti authorities.^[3]