7. Success
As the days passed and the prisoners were not released, the hijackers grew more strident and incessant, and threatened to kill their hostages if their demands were not met. Fortunately for the Israelis, an Israeli engineer who had worked with Idi Amin in the 1960s furnished them with the blueprints of the Entebbe terminal building where the hostages were being kept. They used those blueprints to plan a rescue mission. On the night of July 3rd, 1976, 100 Israeli special forces boarded C-130 cargo planes and, escorted by F-4 Phantoms, took off on a 2500 mile flight to Uganda.
Within 90 minutes of touching down at Entebbe, the commandos had killed all 7 hostage takers, along with about 45 Ugandan soldiers, and destroyed 30 Ugandan jets at the airport. In exchange, they lost 1 commando killed and 5 wounded, plus 3 dead and 10 wounded hostages. Commandos and hostages then boarded the C-130 transports for a short flight to Nairobi, Kenya. There, the planes refueled and the wounded were taken to an awaiting hospital plane, before flying back to Israel.
