In the early 1990s, regime changes in Ethiopia sparked renewed concerns about the welfare of Ethiopian Jews, prompting Israel to launch Operation Solomon, which airlifted nearly 15,000 refugees to Israel in a span of just 36 hours. One of the planes pressed into service, an El Al Boeing 747, airlifted a record number of passengers, which is widely reported as 1,088, though it’s believed that many children made their way onto the plane hidden inside their mothers’ skirts.
