F-BKGZ  Sud-Est  E-210 Caravelle 3                                       (c/n  83)

                                         

                                     Poor image from a post card I picked up at Bron Airport, Lyon  in the early 1970s on one of
                                     my many business trips to that delightful city in the early 1970s.    The higher grossed-up weight
                                     Caravelle 3 was the best-selling model of this elegant looking French short range jet.  Over the
                                     years, commencing in mid-1959, the airline flew a large (for those days) fleet of over 70 of them.
                                     F-BGKZ went to Royal Air Lao in 1974 as XW-PNH.  Air France re-acquired it in 1974 and it
                                     was re-registered F-BSGZ. (I don't think it had been leased - but maybe Royal Air Lao was a
                                     wholly owned subsidiary and thus it was more or less an asset transfer).  France does not re-assign
                                     original registrations, hence it received a new identity at that time.  On 26 August 1976, just as
                                     the F-BSGZ was about to depart Ho Chi Minh City Airport on a flight to Bangkok, a Vietnamese  
                                     man hijacked the aircraft.  He released the passengers and crew and set off two grenades as police
                                    approached the aircraft to apprehend him.   The hijacker was killed by the explosion and the aircraft
                                    sustained irrepairable damage.