Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Not quite as clean as you made it sound, but neat anyway.
No fatalities among the passengers and no officer KIA is a clean op in my book !
I witnessed the assault live and uncensored, and them GIGN guys have balls of stainless steel.
It was horrendous to watch, the first guy through the door got shot, and he knew he was going to be shot before entering, yet he went in and supressed the tangos long enough for the first team to storm in.
the terrorists then had to move back towards the cockpit, away from the passengers.
meanwhile, snipers shattered the cockpit windows with large caliber rounds, and the second team was evacuating the passengers by the slides, under fire, and securing them in case tangos were among them, medics were giving first aid to injured officers and civilians right under the fuselage, while flashbangs were going off non stop, then the co-pilot jumped off the cockpit, limping away with a broken hip, and the last two tangos were lobbing grenades and spraying with AK's for a while, until they were dispatched.
later when the radio messages were made public, you can hear gunshots, and the pilot still trapped under his seat yelling at the end "they're all dead ! dead!"
A well deserved
to the GIGN, they rocked.