The plane ran out of fuel. The hijackers, who were apparently young, stupid and intoxicated - forced the pilot to try to fly to Australia, even though the pilo

The plane ran out of fuel. The hijackers, who were apparently young, stupid and intoxicated - forced the pilot to try to fly to Australia, even though the pilot said they didn't even have enough fuel to make it 25% of the way. The plane ran out of fuel off the coast of Africa, and the engines died. The pilot used a Ram Air Turbine (basically using airspeed to drive a turbine) to provide emergency power so he could land. However, I assume the hydraulics didn't work at this stage, hence he couldn't use the flaps to slow it down.