Hello ,This young woman was WAY more than a pretty face! At just 23, she showed amazing resourcefulness, courage and calm under pressure.
A new movie dramatizes the 1986 hijacking during which Neerja Bhanot was killed. Flight Attendant Neerja Bhanot helped save the lives of 360 people in 1986 when hijackers armed with guns and grenades grounded a Pan American World Airways plane.
The flight from Mumbi, India to New York had stopped in Karachi,
Pakistan when the four terrorists boarded, screaming and firing shots in the air.
Neerja's father, Harish Bhano, describes what happened next. Neerja dashed to inform the captain in the cockpit. A terrorist, however, caught her by her handy ponytail but she was able to shout the "hijack code". Another flight attendant who got her code conveyed it to the cockpit.
The cockpit crew fled through an escape hatch, leaving the hijackers grounded. It fell to head purser (as they call flight attendants in India) Neerja to quiet and
reassure passengers.
When the terrorists demanded everyone's passports and she realized they planned to execute the Americans, Neerja managed to deceive the gunmen, hiding American passports under seats. The new film, produced by Fox Star Studios and Bling Unplugged is in Hindi with English subtitles.
Independent film critic Murtaza Ali Khan says the movie is important because western accounts of the hijacking focus on British and Americans on board Pan Am Flight 73.
The film has it's flaws. Khan says it fails as a thriller, but that it does justice to the real-life Neerja's courage and selflessness.
The siege of Flight 73, September 5, 1986, fell one day before Neerja's 23rd birthday. It lasted 17-hours.
One passenger
remembers:
After some time, in the afternoon, they offered us sandwiches. But who on earth can eat food in such a difficult situation?
In the evening, they allowed everyone to go to the toilet, one after the other, by crawling on the floor with our hands locked over our heads.
As the plane's fuel ran out, the generator lost power and the lights faded. In the
growing dark, the terrorist panicked and began firing at passengers and throwing grenades.
Neerja jumped to open the emergency exit and usher passengers down the chute. An eyewitness told Neerja's father the lead hijacker grabbed his daughter and shot her point blank. India memorialized the young woman on a postage stamp, and posthumously, awarded her India's Ashok Chakra, the highest award possible for a civilian in peacetime.
Of the 380 passengers on board, 22 were killed by the
hijackers.
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