It is 11th September. Government officials are told that terrorists have hijacked a plane and are about to carry out a devastating suicide attack. A familiar scenario – but this is not New York in 2001. The terrifying attempted hijack was just one of many terrifying events that transpired during the 1972 Munich Olympics. This documentary deals with the Munich Massacre, in which members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and killed by a Palestinian terrorist group: Black September.

Hundreds of millions of TV viewers around the world were watching as Chancellor Willy Brandt made the closing speech of the Munich Olympics. Then, news of an allegedly hijacked plane heading towards Munich electrified and terrified the Bonn government. In order to avoid panic, nothing was said. But as German fighters prepared to shoot down the plane, it was revealed that it was a normal Finnish airliner whose communications system had broken. The 1972 Olympics had nearly suffered its second catastrophe.

The first one was a horrific, almost unthinkable tragedy that had started to unfold five days earlier. On 5th September 1972, eight Palestinian terrorists managed to infiltrate the Israeli team's living quarters. Gunshots rung out, and two Israelis died in the bloodshed. Nine others are taken hostage.

Nobody was prepared for such an attack. As negotiations began, a chain of incredible blunders unfolded. The terrorists followed the East German television's live coverage of government snipers taking their positions. Fearful of being tricked into a suicide commando, a team of undercover policemen called off an operation intended to overwhelm the terrorists on their flight to Cairo.

The attempt to free the hostages ended in a bloodbath. All nine Israeli hostages, one German policeman and five terrorists were killed. Yet IOC President Brundage decried that: "the games must go on". Millions of people still remember the first live broadcast of a terror attack in history. This compelling documentary reveals the true and terrifying story of Black September.