Pan Am Flight 73 was a scheduled passenger flight operated by Pan American World Airways from Bombay to New York City via Karachi and Frankfurt. On 5 September 1986, the Boeing 747-100 serving the flight, with 379 passengers and crew on board, was hijacked while on the ground at Karachi by four armed Palestinian militants affiliated with the Abu Nidal Organization. The cockpit crew escaped from the aircraft through an overhead hatch after being alerted to the situation by the flight attendants. Without the cockpit crew, the aircraft was grounded, foiling the hijackers' plan to fly the aircraft to Cyprus, where other members of their militant group were imprisoned.
While the hijackers demanded that the pilots be sent back to operate the aircraft, they shot an Indian-American passenger. They tried to identify other American passengers, their primary targets, by examining the passengers' passports. The cabin crew concealed the passports under the seats and in the trash chute, preventing the hijackers from identifying the American passengers. After a 17-hour standoff, the cabin lights went out due to a loss of power after the Auxiliary power unit failed and the back up battery ran out. The hijackers threw grenades and opened fire using automatic rifles inside the darkened cabin. The passengers and the crew tried to escape through the two exit doors that had been opened. The Pakistan Armed Forces entered the aircraft soon afterward. The hijack and the assault resulted in the deaths of at least 20 people, including the head purser Neerja Bhanot and Pan Am mechanic Meherjee Kharas.
According to US government officials, the hijacking was orchestrated by Libya in response to the 1986 United States bombing of Libya. Five people including the four hijackers were arrested and sentenced to death in July 1988 after a Pakistani trial; their sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment. Zayd Safarini, the leader of the hijackers, was released from jail in Pakistan after 15 years and extradited to the United States where he was sentenced to a 160-year prison term in May 2005. The other four hijackers were released and deported to Palestine in 2008, despite objections from India and the United States. The four released hijackers are part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Most Wanted Terrorists list with a cash reward offered in 2009 to those who provide information on the whereabouts of the men.
In the aftermath, Bhanot was posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime gallantry award and the Tamgha-e-Insaniyat, Pakistan's fourth-highest civilian award, among other awards. In 2006, the United States Department of Justice awarded the "Special Courage Award" to the cabin crew of the flight. The incident is portrayed in the 2016 Hindi-language film Neerja, based on Bhanot's life, and in Hijacked: Flight 73, a 2023 documentary.
Background
Aircraft
Pan Am Flight 73 was a scheduled passenger flight operated by Pan American World Airways from Bombay to New York City via Karachi and Frankfurt. On 5 September 1986, the service was operated by a Boeing 747-121, registered N656PA, which was delivered to Pan American World Airways on 18 June 1971. It was earlier named as Clipper Live Yankee by the airline, and was known as Clipper Empress of the Seas during the incident.
Passengers and crew
When the aircraft flew from Bombay to Karachi, there were 394 passengers on board including nine infants. These included 207 Indians, 85 Pakistanis, 44 US citizens and 58 people of other nationalities, mostly from Europe. At Karachi, 109 people disembarked from the flight and a few others boarded the aircraft. At the time of the hijacking, there were 379 passengers and crew members on board the flight, in addition to Pan Am mechanic Meherjee Kharas, who was not a member of the cabin crew but was trapped inside the aircraft during the hijacking while conducting routine maintenance checks.
The cockpit consisted of an all-American crew composed of captain William Kianka, first officer Conway Dodge Sr. and flight engineer John Ridgeway. There was a 13 member all-Indian cabin crew headed by senior purser Neerja Bhanot, comprising purser Lillian Netto and 11 flight attendants. There were also three other flight attendants who were pass-riding. Among the passengers were 193 Indians, and 75 Americans.
Hijackers
There were four hijackers led by Zayd Hassan Abd al-Latif Safarini, and including Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim, Muhammad Abdullah Khalil Hussain ar-Rahayyal, and Muhammad Ahmed Al-Munawar, who were affiliated with the Abu Nidal Organization. While Safarini was a Jordanian citizen, Rahim and Hussain were from Lebanon, and Al-Munawar was from Kuwait.
Hijacking
Hijacking and takeover
Pan Am Flight 73 originated in Bombay and landed at the Karachi airport for a scheduled stopover at 5:25 a.m. A few passengers disembarked at Karachi and a new busload of fresh passengers from Karachi began boarding the aircraft. The four hijackers had earlier driven a vehicle that had been modified to resemble an airport security van and passed through the airport security point. At around 6 a.m., the vehicle approached the stairways used for boarding passengers for Pan Am Flight 73. Two armed men, dressed in airport security uniforms, quickly climbed up the stairs. There was also gunfire outside the aircraft reported around this time, which injured two Kuwait Airways ground staff working on an aircraft nearby. Soon, two other men joined them, one of them dressed in a salwar kameez and carrying a suitcase. They shot at the foot of Bhanot, who was at the door, forcing her to close to the door. The hijackers were armed with several handguns, assault rifles, grenades, and wore plastic explosive belts. While they took control of the aircraft, the cabin crew alerted the pilots in the cockpit by intercom. The cockpit crew subsequently exited the aircraft through the overhead emergency hatch, via the Inertial Reel Escape Device. The escape of the pilots immobilized the aircraft.
Demand for the pilots
After seizing control of the aircraft, one of the hijackers asked flight attendant Sunshine Vesuwala to lead him to the cockpit. When the hijackers discovered that the cockpit crew had escaped, they were forced to negotiate with officials. The window blinds were pulled down, and the first- and business-class passengers were moved to the economy section with their hands behind their heads. Viraf Daroga, Pan Am's Country Director for Pakistan, used a megaphone to try to negotiate with the hijackers. Safarini demanded that the pilots return to the aircraft. He later revealed that the hijackers intended to fly the aircraft to Larnaca, Cyprus, to negotiate the release of Palestinian prisoners held in the country's prisons. Daroga told the hijackers that they were searching for pilots to fly the aircraft.
As the negotiations dragged on, Safarini ordered Rajesh Kumar, a 29-year-old resident of California who had recently been naturalized as an American citizen, to kneel at the front doorway of the aircraft with his hands behind his head. Safarini warned Daroga that he would kill Kumar unless a cockpit crew was sent to the aircraft. As Safarini grew impatient because his demands were not being met, he shot Kumar in the head at approximately 10:00 a.m. and pushed him out of the door. According to Pakistani authorities, Kumar was still alive and was taken to a hospital by ambulance, where he later succumbed to his injuries.
Safarini ordered flight attendants Bhanot, Vesuwala, and Madhvi Bahuguna to collect the passengers' passports. The hijackers then went through the collected passports in an attempt to identify US citizens. However, believing that passengers carrying United States passports would be singled out by the hijackers, the flight attendants hid some of the passports under the seats and discarded the rest in a trash bin. Unable to find any American passports, Safarini went through the cabin asking passengers about their nationalities.
Standoff
Mechanic Kharas, who was stuck aboard the plane, was forced by the hijackers to use the cockpit radio to communicate with the negotiators. Safarini then called Michael Thexton, a British citizen, who was forced to kneel on the floor at the front of the plane. Thexton was returning home to England after visiting Broad Peak, where his brother had died of altitude sickness in 1983. He remained in that position for nearly 12 hours, while the hijackers negotiated with the authorities. Eventually, the hijackers allowed the crew to serve food to the passengers. Safarini continued to negotiate for a cockpit crew and set a deadline of 7 p.m. He used flight attendants Veswala and Sherene Pavan as human shields, while repeatedly surveying the area outside from the upper deck of the aircraft.
Daroga negotiated a new deadline of 11 p.m. and asked for help from Pan Am headquarters in New York. Pan Am pilots Hart Langer, Ed Cywinski, along with engineer Bob Huetti volunteered to fly the aircraft to Cyprus if the passengers were not harmed by the hijackers. They then boarded a Swissair flight from Zurich to Karachi. As the engines were not running, the aircraft was powered by the Auxiliary power unit (APU). However, the APU had a mechanical issue and failed at 9:55 p.m. The battery-powered emergency lights then came on, causing the cabin lights to flicker.
Shooting and escape
Safarini learnt from Kharas that the battery power would not last long. Kharas was shot in the cockpit when the aircraft was about to lose power. Anticipating the lights to go off, Safarini commanded the passengers to the center of the aircraft and the hijackers positioned themselves on the sides of the aisles. At around 10 p.m., the power went off and the aircraft became dark. The hijackers recited a prayer and began shooting indiscriminately with their automatic rifles while tossing hand grenades. The cabin crew and the passengers managed to open at least two of the doors (R3 and R4) on the right side of the aircraft. The emergency slide deployed on R4, but it did not deploy on the over wing exit R3.
The passengers rushed to escape the aircraft with many of them forced to jump blindly onto the wing and tarmac below in the darkness. The cabin crew helped guide the passengers to safety. Pakistan Armed Forces entered the aircraft after hearing the shooting. When the gunfire had stopped, some of the crew went back inside the aircraft to look for survivors. They found that Bhanot had been shot by the hijackers, and was bleeding profusely. Veswala and another flight attendant, Dilip Bidichandani, carried Bhanot to the emergency exit and pushed her down the slide. She was helped by other crew members onto an ambulance.
Victims
At least 20 people were killed and 150 more were injured in the incident. The dead included Pan Am employees Bhanot and Kharas, and at least 18 other civilians including 14 Indian citizens, and two US and Mexican citizens each. The injured were taken to hospitals in Karachi. According to other crew members, Bhanot was alive when she was put in an ambulance and taken to the Jinnah Hospital, where she later succumbed to her injuries. Eyewitness accounts later recalled that the airport had limited medical facilities, and the hospital was located far away, which might have led to more casualties.
The seriously injured were airlifted aboard a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter of the United States Air Force to Frankfurt. The US citizens were treated at military facilities at Landstuhl and Wiesbaden, while others were admitted to civilian hospitals in Frankfurt. Two 747s were operated by Pan Am to ferry the remaining passengers to Frankfurt, while a few chose to travel back to Bombay.
The damaged aircraft was repaired and was flown to Frankfurt five days later by the relief crew of captains Langer and Cywinski, along with Engineer Huetti. The aircraft was eventually repaired and returned to scheduled service. After a short break, the remaining surviving flight crew returned to work.
Aftermath and response
Conflicting accounts and criticism
The evacuation of the cockpit crew, which left the passengers in the care of a 23-year-old flight purser and an inexperienced cabin crew, became a subject of debate among aviation experts and commentators. Pan Am defended their actions and stated that the evacuation was in accordance with its standard operating procedures. The absence of the flight crew also prevented the aircraft from being operated, potentially allowing more time for negotiations. The position was echoed by the cabin crew who were in the aircraft.
There were several inconsistencies regarding the Pakistan government's response to the hijacking. Initial Pakistani statements claimed that army commandos had stormed the aircraft almost immediately after the shooting began, but different people various accounts. Brigadier Tariq Mahmud, head of security, said two minutes, Jahandad Khan, the Governor of Sind, said six to seven minutes, while Air Marshal Khurshid Anwar Mirza gave varying accounts, including almost immediately, three minutes, and 15 minutes. Various accounts placed their arrival between three and 15 minutes later. Passengers said that the commandos did not enter the aircraft until after the shooting started, and by the time the commandos reached the plane, many passengers had already started escaping, assisted by the cabin crew.
Initially, the Pakistani authorities, stated in the first press briefing on the night of the hijacking that they knew that the lights inside the aircraft would go off at around 9:30 p.m. and that the tarmac lights were switched off to facilitate the rescue by the commandos. However, in the next briefing, which took place the following morning, the authorities denied having made the earlier statements. A Pan Am official said that the company had warned the Pakistani authorities well in advance that the aircraft's APU was likely to fail, but the warning was not acted upon. The conflicting official accounts from the Pakistani authorities also claimed that commandos had killed two hijackers. Authorities later said that one body, which was initially identified as a hijacker, was actually that of the Pan Am employee Mehras, while wounded hijacker Safarini had initially been mistaken for dead.