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Case file

Japan Air Lines Flight 404

In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “airliner hijacked by palestinian and japanese terrorists in july”. Today it says “passenger flight which was hijacked by the popular front for the liberation of palestine and japanese red army”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-02. In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “airliner hijacked by palestinian and japanese terrorists in july”. Today it says “passenger flight which was hijacked by the popular front for the liberation of palestine and japanese red army”.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2025 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2025

Japan Air Lines Flight 404 was a passenger flight which was hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Japanese Red Army on 20 July 1973. The aircraft was a Boeing 747-246B , with 123 passengers and 22 crew members on board. The passenger complement included five terrorists, led by Osamu Maruoka, a member of the Japanese Red Army , and the other four were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine . Just after takeoff from Schiphol Airport, the flight was hijacked. One of the hijackers accidentally detonated a grenade she was carrying, killing herself and severely injuring the chief purser. The lead hijacker almost immediately announced himself to air traffic control as El Kassar, hijacking the aircraft in the name of the Palestinian Liberation movement. After several Middle Eastern governments refused to permit Flight 404 to land, the plane eventually touched down in Dubai , in the United Arab Emirates. After several days on the ground, the terrorists demanded the release of Kozo Okamoto , survivor of the JRA's attack on Tel Aviv 's Lod Airport . After the Israeli government refused to release Okamoto, the hijackers flew the aircraft first to Damascus , Syria, and then to Benghazi , in Libya. On 23 July, 89 hours after the hijacking began, the passengers and crew were released; the hijackers then blew up the aircraft, making the incident the second hull loss of a Boeing 747, and the first hull loss of a 747-200. The first hull-loss was also the result of hijackers. Maruoka escaped, and in 1977, led the hijacking of Japan Air Lines Flight 472 . He remained a fugitive until 1987 when he was arrested in Tokyo after entering Japan on a forged passport. Given a life sentence, he died in prison on 29 May 2011. Center for Defense Information .

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 1291474767.
Today
In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “airliner hijacked by palestinian and japanese terrorists in july”. Today it says “passenger flight which was hijacked by the popular front for the liberation of palestine and japanese red army”. Read the current article and compare.
201020152020Oct '232025
terror33554
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined between 2010 and 2025.

Then

airliner hijacked by palestinian and japanese terrorists in july

Now

passenger flight which was hijacked by the popular front for the liberation of palestine and japanese red army

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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