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At 10 a.m., the trio took their places of honor in the reviewing stand, front row center, slightly elevated above the parade route behind a 5-ft.-high wall, Sadat in the middle, Mubarak to his right, General Abu Ghazala to his left. For three days before the parade, security personnel had inspected every rifle, every truck, every tank that would be in the march, to make sure that no live ammunition would be issued. Now the security men were combing the arriving invited guests with metal detectors. Jehan Sadat, the President's elegant wife, 48, had brought her grandchildren and was watching from a glass enclosure at the top of the stand; it was the first time she had taken the youngsters to a public event. Abu Ghazala launched the proceedings with a speech praising Egypt's armed forces. The review began. It was 11:30 a.m. As the first units rumbled by, Abu Ghazala began to explain to Sadat the purposes and capabilities of each piece of equipment. Relaxed and smiling, the President puffed on his pipe, savoring the show of Egypt's passing firepower. One of the vehicles and a motorcycle broke down near the stand, briefly disrupting the march-past, but the columns quickly reformed.
At about 12:40 p.m., midway through the parade, Abu Ghazala pointed out to Sadat six Mirage jet fighters sweeping low overhead, trailing plumes of blue, yellow, red and white smoke across the azure sky. Directly in front of the reviewing stand, a truck towing a Soviet-made 130-mm antitank gun braked to a halt. Other drivers in the four-column-wide procession, apparently suspecting more mechanical trouble, swerved to pass the vehicle. With their eyes cast skyward to watch the planes, the dignitaries in the stand, some 100 ft. away, were oblivious to what was happening in front of them.
Suddenly, there was the staccato sound of gunfire. Three uniformed men were spraying the stand from the back of the truck; a fourth leaped from the passenger seat and hurled a grenade into the crowd. The grenade landed at the feet of Abu Ghazala but failed to explode. A second grenade hit the face of Major General Abdrab Nabi Hafez, the Armed Forces Chief of Staff, who was also sitting near Sadat, but it too was a dud. The grenade thrower dashed back to the truck. grabbed an automatic weapon from the seat, turned again and began firing as he charged toward the stand. The three other uniformed men jumped from the back of the vehicle to join him, sprinting toward the dais and unleashing a torrent of automatic-weapons fire as they rushed ahead with shouts of "Glory for Egypt, attack!"
For seconds the spectators sat frozen, apparently thinking that the assault was part of the show. Sadat rose as if preparing to salute the onrushing men. As the truth bore in with each relentless round of fire, the sounds of frightened screams and crashing chairs exploded, and the crowd stampeded for the exits at the rear. Sadat was struck by bullets or fragments. Others fell around him. "I pulled the President down, and someone else tried to shield him with a couple of chairs," Abu Ghazala said later. "I felt the bullets flying all around me. I could feel the heat of them. Twice I thought it was all over: when I saw the grenade flying toward me, and when I saw a gun barrel right in my face, just five feet away from me."