Air France Flight 8969 was an Air France flight that was hijacked on 24 December 1994 by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) at Houari Boumediene Airport, Algiers. The terrorists murdered three passengers and their intention was either to blow up the plane over the Eiffel Tower in Paris or crash the plane into it. When the aircraft reached Marseille, the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN), a counter-terror unit of the French National Gendarmerie, stormed the plane and killed all four hijackers.This was the second Air France Airbus A300 to be hijacked since Air France Flight 139 in Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976, known as Operation Entebbe.