February 21 1970 – 15 Adar 5730
A Convair 990 Coronado aircraft belonging to Swissair crashed just minutes after take off from Zurich airport en route to Tel Aviv. Terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, headed by George Habash, had concealed a bomb in a mail package addressed to Israel, which should have been sent on an El Al plane. Technical delays resulted in the mail sacks being loaded onto the Swissair flight, where the bomb detonated in the plane’s cargo hold. It had evidently been designed to explode as a result of barometric pressure when the plane reached a certain height. The crew tried to turn the aircraft around and land in Zurich, but couldn’t maintain course, crashing the plane in a forest outside the city. All 38 passengers and nine crew, including fifteen Israelis, were killed in the attack.