1973 Rome airport attacks and hijacking

In December 1973, Fatah, a Palestinian military organization executed series of attacks originating at Rome-Fiumicino Airport in Italy which resulted in the deaths of 34 people. 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.

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.

Since the public has never been provided with unambiguous, official proof as to which power or organization commissioned the attack, the real motives remain unknown to this day. However, this terrorist operation on Italian soil can be related to another event: on the very same December 17 date as the Fiumicino massacre, a hearing had been scheduled for the criminal trial of the terrorists, already detained in Italy, of the earlier failed terrorist attack in Ostia (Rome).