The Flight Attendant Who Sacrificed Her Life to Save Passengers
Tags: History, Life Lessons, Culture, World, Heroes

The Flight Attendant Who Sacrificed Her Life to Save Passengers

The story of Neerja Bhanot

Neerja Bhanot and the hijacked plane. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Neerja Bhanot was born in September 1963, in Chandigarh, India. Ever since she was little, the girl drew attention because of her beauty, and because of that, she had a brief modeling career. Following the tradition of her culture, still very young, she had to marry the man that her parents chose for her.

However, the marriage didn’t work out and she returned to her parents’ house two months after being wed. However, everything was about to change when, in 1985, she started to work as a flight attendant.

The hijacking

In 1985, Neerja Bhanot applied for a flight attendant job at Pan Am, the company decided to have an all-Indian cabin crew for its routes from Frankfurt to India. After the selection, she went to Miami for training.

On September 5, 1986, at Karachi Airport, Pakistan, four terrorists of Palestinian origin and affiliated with the Abu Nidal organization passed the security guards and prevented the plane from taking off to Frankfurt, where it would make a layover before reaching its final destination in New York.

The aircraft was carrying 380 passengers and 13 crew members. The terrorists wanted to fly to Cyprus to free Palestinian prisoners in the country. Bhanot was able to alert the cabin crew as soon as the hijackers boarded the plane, and when the plane was on the platform, the cockpit crew, comprised of the pilot, the co-pilot, and the flight engineer fled the aircraft through an upper hatch in the cabin. As the most experienced cabin crew member, Bhanot took control of the situation inside the plane.

The intention was to kill all American passengers — forty-four in total — until the requests to send the plane to Cyprus and release terrorist prisoners were granted. The kidnapping lasted almost seventeen hours.

Right at the beginning, the terrorists identified a newly naturalized Indian American passenger, took him to the plane’s door, and shot him in front of everyone — both inside and outside the aircraft. They then threw the still alive man onto the runway. He was rescued but died on the way to the hospital. Then, when the terrorists decided to kill all the American passengers, Neerja put her life at risk by selecting passports from the people but hiding those with that nationality.

This further angered the hijackers, who could not recognize which ones would be their first targets. Neerja took advantage of an oversight and handed passengers sitting near the emergency exit a magazine that had hidden instructions for opening an emergency door and inflating the escape slides.

After several hours of tension, the men opened fire and started to detonate explosives while inside the plane. Bhanot opened one of the plane’s doors, and although she could have been the first to jump and flee the aircraft, she did not and instead began to help the other passengers to escape. According to one surviving passenger, she was guiding passengers to the emergency exit. That’s when the terrorists were constantly shooting for fear of an outside attack by the police. They saw Neerja trying relentlessly to help three unaccompanied children, among others, get out and that was when they caught her by the ponytail and shot her at close range.

Of a total of forty-four American passengers, two died during the hijacking. A child on board who survived is now captain of a major airline and said that Bhanot was his inspiration and that he owes her every day of his life. She was internationally recognized as “the plane hero” and became the youngest to receive the Ashok Chakra Award, India’s most prestigious gallantry award for bravery in times of peace.

The highjackers' trial took place in 1988 – they were sentenced to death, but subsequently had their capital punishment changed to life imprisonment. However, reports indicate that the four hijackers were released in 2009 and later deported to Palestinian territories.

Zayd Safarini, the hijacking mentor, managed to be released in 2001, after years in prison in Pakistan. However, his freedom lasted for a short period of time, and he was arrested once more and sentenced to 160 years in prison.

The brave act of saving the lives of many hostages made Bahanot an unforgettable hero. She posthumously received several awards for her courage from the United States government and Pakistan’s Tamgha-e-Pakistan, an award given for showing great human kindness.