Storming Flight 181: GSG 9 and the Mogadishu Hijack 1977 (Raid)

I received this book from Amazon quickly.This book is quite interesting and is about a nearly forgotten event. It has implications even today with the rise of radical ----- terrorism. The composition and research is good but the author Mcnab makes more than a few errors. Mcnab makes many grammatical errors and at least one misidentification error involving a weapon. As with the case of another Osprey book written by him (M60 vs At3 Sagger), the errors can really distract from the quality of the book. Surely Osprey can find better writers than him.

Will written and researched.

Well written and thoroughly researched. You won't get much better in a short book. It was straight forward and to the point.

Received the book yesterday, and thought I would give it a read; there is a fair amount of information on the background of the terrorists, and their organizations, but not that much in the book on GSG-9 and the actual storming of Flight LH 181. The volume seemed a bit more political than tactical. The book was purchased as not much information on GSG-9 exits on this side of the water. There are good photos however.

In 1977 Palestinian terrorists took control of a Lufthansa airliner (at the same time the RAF took a prominent industrialist histage in Germany) and led them on an ordeal which would end at Mogadishu, Somalia. The GSG9 special police group made an end of the terrorists and liberated the remaining hostages with no casualties. This dates back to the last days of airline travel with no x-ray machines or metal detectors and the terrorists took control of plane with two pistols and explosives. GSG9, well-trained and equipped, quickly practiced their assault on an identical plane and were assisted by the terrorists choice of attire (bright red Che Guevera shirts). Well-illustrated with maps, photos and original artwork, the book is also well-written and very enjoyable. Only found one error, page 28: gray box describes "kill all eight hostages" should read "kill all eight terrorists."

I read Chirs McNab's account of the hijacking and recovery of Lufthansa Flight 181 in 1977. I always thought that subject matter such as this would be a best fit for Osprey Raid series. Anyway, this book is about how an elite team of West Germany's counter-terrorist unit (GSG-9) successfully rescued all the passengers of that hijack jet after the terrorists murdered the primary pilot in cold blood. The book goes into the background of the terrorist movement, political reasoning and with ease that they were able to smuggled their weapons aboard the jetliner. The author also traced the creation of the GSG-9 unit that started off with the Munich Massacre during the 1972 Olympics of Israeli athletics and the inability of West German law enforcement to handled the situation.The book proves to be well written and researched. The author paints a very clear picture of the situation and his prose is firm and to the point. The reader will get a clear understanding of how the hijacking went down, how the rescue operation took place, the roles played by the major players in what turned out to be a textbook operation on hostage rescue. It also shows how a well trained and determined counter terrorist team can overcome a deadly situation without a loss of life among the innocents. But they still needed the cooperation of the local authorities to pulled it off. Of the four terrorists, three were shot down and fourth is ironically still alive to this day living in Norway. She was sentenced to 20 years but only served one year due to ill-health. Pretty sad considering that the pilot murdered by her cohorts, still lies dead.I thought this book was highly informative and educational considering its format.

The illustrations could have been better. Osprey seems to have gone downhill in that department compared to the work of Ron Volstad and Mike Chappell. The book would have benefited from a little more information on the assaulters' kit and the tactics used compared to the relatively generic coverage given to those topics.

A well laid out book that covers every aspect of the raid plus a good intro to the period and the various terrorist groups operating in Europe at the time. As with all recent Osprey books the illustrations aren't the greatest but they do their job I guess.

I was looking for something which talked about this event

Great Story, well told. All the Details, and the well deserved appreciation of the German Chief Negotiator ... MUST READ! Hermann

Very nice!