Zero Hour

Zero Hour 3: Shoot-Out in Marseilles chronicles the final sixty minutes of a two-day stand-off between Algerian hijackers and France’s counter terrorist unit. Air France flight 8969 had first been hijacked in Algiers and was then permitted by Algerian authorities to fly to Marseilles. Here the ordeal is nearing its 54th hour. On December 26 1994, four hijackers of the extreme Islamist group the GIA, armed with machine guns, explosives and grenades, hold captive one hundred and seventy one terrified passengers. Concealed around the airport perimeter, an elite team of French Special Forces awaits the order to storm the plane. The hijackers’ final ultimatum is just minutes from reaching its deadline. If their demands are not met, their deadly arsenal is enough to blow up the plane and kill everyone on board. As the siege nears the end of its final hour, one of the most violent and remarkable rescue operations in hijack history is about to unfold. Using a real-time split-screen format, the viewer experiences these sixty critical minutes as they happen to the key characters: Major Favier, commander of the GIGN, Alain Gehin, Regional Prefect and negotiator, the committed terrorists led by Abdul Abdallah Yahia, Captain Bernard Dhellemme, Co-Pilot Jean-Paul Borderie, flight attendant Claude Burgniard and passenger Yasmina Garreau. Interviews are inter-cut with the highly emotional and deadly battle of nerves played out by the GIA and the GIGN.