Wasn't an Egyptair 737 hijacked to Malta years ago with tragic results for numerous passengers? Off the topic a bit, concerning actual hostages: do politics or national pride ever prevent asking a neighboring country to fly in a much-better trained squad of assault troops, who are sometimes trained for hostage rescue, when time permits?
I've read about the British SAS' successes and the German team's success many years ago with the Lufthansa plane in Mogadishu, Somalia, not to mention the Israeli Mossad. They spent twenty years "tracking down" those Black September members involved in the murders in '72 during the Munich Olympics. Do France, Italy or others there also have top-notch teams?
The US has at least one team which the military won't even acknowledge. Hopefully, unnecessary overlap between various branches of the DOD won't hinder our "immediate goals"-people died in the Iranian desert when numerous branchs of the DOD all had to have a piece of the action, according to reports. In Grenada, different forces used different radios which were incompatible. One officer called the US in order to relay info to nearby troops or aircraft. Thank God the ZSUs' radar was "inop per MEL"! I rode a cargo jet jumpseat next to an FE-a former C-130 AC on that mission-who quickly turned around when the awful ZSUs sprayed large tracers around.
[ 24 September 2001: Message edited by: Ignition Override ]