Hijacked: Flight 73 (2023) - full transcript

The following programme contains
distressing scenes.

Criminal case 19504,

United States
versus Zaid al-Safarini.

Welcome to
the United States District Court.

I invite anyone who would like to
speak to the court today to do so.

We never talk about it.

35 years have gone by.

But some things stay in the memory.

Mr Maisel.
Thank you, Your Honour.

We are here to remember.

Reports coming in on the apparent
hijacking of a Pan American 747.



We are here to recount.

We are here to bear witness.

We are here to punish.

I hope he suffers.

We are here for justice.
Safarini?

TWA flight 847 with 39 Americans
taken hostage for 17 days.

Rome Airport,
just days after Christmas.

This incredibly dangerous
and dramatic situation...

People are being held here
as hostage...

Terrorists are not freedom fighters
or anything else.

Palestine is a battlefield
and it is our land.

A ten-year-old boy inherits the gun
of the dead Fedayeen.

He could well become a terrorist.

As terror spreads
across the Middle East,



the '80s had surely become the age
of the airline attack.

I hope nothing happens.
I think we'll be fine.

And, of course, Libya has a finger
in most terrorist pies.

My fellow Americans,
at seven o'clock this evening,

air and naval forces
launched a series of strikes

against Muammar Gaddafi.

The raid on Colonel Gaddafi's
headquarters in Tripoli

killing an adopted daughter.

This pre-emptive action
will provide him with incentives

and reasons to alter
his criminal behaviour.

Karachi was just to pick up
passengers, drop off people

from Bombay, and then carry on.

I was desperate to get home.

I had a couple of friends
hiking with me in Pakistan.

We had walked up
to Broad Peak base camp,

which is right at the foot of K2.

Every day it was incredibly hot.

We hadn't had a decent meal.

And I felt exhausted
at the end of all of that.

In the Pan Am office, a woman said,

"Yes, I have a flight from Karachi
to Frankfurt to London."

It was a business-class seat.
I had never flown business class.

And I thought, "This is fantastic."

I made my parents
buy me a ticket to India

and spend my summer vacation there.

It was a great summer.
But you wanna get back home.

I was travelling
as an unaccompanied minor.

I really had to persuade my mom
to send me.

I'm her only child. I told her,

"It'll be great,
I'll be a good boy."

The one thing my mom
was very keen on is,

"Hey, listen,
I want you to come back,

so don't lose your passport,
Dwijal, or else."

We were travelling
to the US that day.

I finished my masters
and she finished her education

and then we decided to move there
for better studies.

We were sitting in the aisle seat
in the middle in economy class.

My sister Sana and my brother Imran.
Three of us.

I was 24.

I was 24? I was born in '62, so...

I don't know how old I was.
I stopped counting my age.

The first thing I heard
was shouting.

Move or we will kill!

We heard automatic fire.

Move in!

And saw the security guy
holding onto a passenger.

My first thought was

maybe the passenger was a criminal
or something.

Down! Everyone sit down!

I saw a man struggling
with one of the flight attendants

in the second doorway.

I didn't think of,
sort of, running away.

I just stared at him and thought,
"That's a man with a gun."

Everybody get down!

Behind me, in the front doorway,

there was another man in uniform
with a rifle.

I thought that he was on my side.
You have been hijacked!

There were four of them on board.
Two guys came from the front.

Look down! Don't look at me!

And then there was two guys
at the back.

They were wearing blue uniforms,
light-blue uniforms.

Look down!

They look like safety guys. They are
the policemen. What's happening?

Everyone sit down!

Sit down! Hands up!

I saw a man shouting, "Hands up!"

Hands up, like that. Like that.

Up!
We saw, like, the hand grenade.

And that was the point
when you just freeze.

Don't look at me! Higher! Up! Up!

One of the guys looked like a kid.

Nobody move!

The young hijacker,
he looked into my eyes.

It's very hard for me to forget.

Don't look at me!
What did I tell you?

And he was a bit harsh, you know.
A bit harsh?

Hijack!
Anyone move and they get hurt!

My 11-year-old brain

was used to going through drills,

fire drills at school,
earthquake drills.

"Ah, it's just another drill.
It's a hijack drill."

I do remember other children
starting to cry

and I remember at the time
priding myself cos I wasn't crying.

You, too! Look down! Don't move!

I dialled the emergency number
for the cockpit.

And then I gave the code
for a hijacking.

On this 747, the cockpit crew
is on the upper deck.

So they would not be able to see
what was happening in the main deck.

My flight engineer,
he came right back in the cockpit

and was in a panic.

I felt very frightened.

And then we had the first
announcement in English.

"Ladies and gentlemen,
the group responsible apologise

for the inconvenience caused.
Their argument is not with you.

They do not wish to hurt anyone.

But if you make any sudden movement,
you will be shot."

When I saw that the ad for Pan Am
said they were hiring

flight attendants
from Mumbai, India,

I was excited.

Pan Am was an international carrier.
It kind of made history.

There were 10,000 applications.

They had never done
anything like that before.

They'd only ever had
flight attendants from the US.

I was born in Bombay. I always
wanted to be a flight attendant.

Pan Am was a legend.

Anywhere in the world you went,
there's two names people knew.

Coca-Cola and Pan Am.

'More style,
more luxury in the sky.'

It had the reputation of being one
of the best airlines in the world.

So prestigious,
you want to give it your best.

Because being America,
you had to be super slim.

You had to look a certain way.
You had to dress a certain way.

You had to act a certain way.

We were a young bunch of
enthusiastic, excited young people.

I was over the moon.

A dream come true.

It was that bond that we shared.

It was about two and a half months

we had started as full-fledged crew.

I had done
about eight or nine flights.

10 to 12 flights.

I just... I loved it.
I just loved it.

Keep your hands up, all of you!

Don't look at me! Look down!

One of them shouted
a list of instructions.

It sounded to me as if this was
the leader of the terrorists.

I didn't want to look him in the eye.

Move. You, come!

He was the real deal.
Quick! Come! Where are the pilots?

'An aircraft on the ground,
effectively immobilised,

is the best solution
to reduce risk of harm to hostages.'

We knew that we had to do
everything we could

to make this airplane unusable
and to exit and get out of here.

'Your possibilities for survival
are greatly reduced

when the plane is airborne.'

Open the door. Open it!

'Remember to keep the hijacker
out of the cockpit if possible.'

Open the door!
Captain, can you hear me?

Key.
I do not have a key, sir.

Captain.
Open the door.

I had the key all the time.

Open the door.
I do not have access.

Open the door.
I am asking them to open the door.

Captain, can you come to the door,
- please?
- Move, move!

The flimsiest door in the world.

He just pushed me aside
and kicked it in.

'In security training,
crew members have been told

to consider the possibilities
of escaping.'

He was in shock.
Like, "Now what do I do?"

You wear the hat.

I'm not the captain,
I can't fly a plane, so no.

Move.

Your knowledge of past hijackings,

emergency procedures
and aircraft equipment

will help you
to assess the situation

and take the actions
you believe to be appropriate

in order to minimise danger.

The cockpit crew had left
and I knew how they would have

because we learned that in training.

I felt deserted,

that they had left us to handle
this... ordeal on our own.

It was hard to leave the cockpit,

to leave the flight attendants
with these terrorists.

You feel like you're abandoning them.

You don't know what's gonna happen,
what's next.

Everybody get up. Out of your seats.
Move!

Up! Move!

'Obviously, it is not possible
to plan a specific course of action

for every emergency.'
Move!

'Each situation is unique

and judgements appropriate
to the situation must be made.'

- Move!
- They wanted the passengers
to be collected in one place.

Move!
Sardined together in the centre.

Walk.

Hands up.

People were crowding.
There was no room to move.

That's kind of when it hit me, like,

"OK, maybe this is not a drill."

There was an announcement made
to lower the window shades.

People outside couldn't see in,
we couldn't see out.

We were sealed off.

That sort of discomfort with extreme
fear, it really gets to you.

I just wanted to get up and scream.

The gentle, plinky-plonky music
that they used to play

before they took off
was on this endless loop.

The Entertainer

playing again and again and again.

It just played all day.

Again and again and again.

Don't look at me!

'Now you know.

Pan Am will bring you
the world's first 747.'

I did 30 years
with Pan American World Airways...

...working on Boeing 707, 747,

whether it was electrical,
radio, mechanical, you name it,

physically working on the airplane.

In 1982, I was made the head
of Pan American for Pakistan

and Iran and Afghanistan.

On that particular day,
I was at home.

They woke me up.
I immediately went to the airport.

I must have arrived half an hour
after the incident had taken place.

Nobody knew at that time that they
were hijackers or what they want.

The door opened and one
of the crew members... called out...

Please come and talk to us.

And there was nothing coming from
any of the government officials

to say what we should do.

It was their responsibility.

It's not for me to do that.

The main hijacker,
he wasn't willing to...

to speak over the megaphone,
and I would speak on the megaphone.

Please, come and talk to us.

I thought, "If I don't go out there

and if this guys keeps calling out,

he may do something drastic...

...because no-one was coming
in front of him."

Please, somebody.

So I said, "I have to go out
and speak to them."

They didn't say, "Don't do it,"
or anything like that.

They said, "Thank you very much."

He says where is the crew
to fly the plane?

I was terrified.

I, too, wanted the captain back.

I have no idea
where the crew have gone.

All I know is that they've got off
the plane and gone somewhere.

I was lying, of course.

I was not going to tell him
that they were in my office.

The whole idea was to buy time.

Because what we would do next
would depend upon

what the government of Pakistan decided.

When I went back, they wanted to
know, "Who was he? What did he..."

And I told them that it appears he's
from some Middle Eastern country.

The government official
instructed police

to go to every hotel in Karachi.

We had to find the passport
the passenger has to give

when he checks into the hotel.

Thank God they stayed
in the Taj Mahal Hotel

on the main airport road.

To work it out was easy because
they had all checked in together

and they all had the same
type of passport with them.

They were Palestinians.

We just got word
from the Associated Press

of a hijacking tonight
in Karachi, Pakistan.

A Pan Am 747, flight 73,

with 390 passenger on board.

We've just received
satellite pictures

of the scene at Karachi Airport,
where hijackers are holding

a Pan Am jumbo jet
with nearly 400 people aboard.

There is Karachi Airport
in Pakistan.

There is the aircraft.

They came back
with photocopies of the passport

and I said,
"Yes, this is the gentleman."

His name was Safarini.

Palestinian guerrillas insist
that their acts of violence

are the only way they can bring
world attention to their cause.

Abu Nidal is the most dangerous
terrorist in the world at present

and his group is in many ways
the most reckless and dangerous

of all the Palestinian groups.

Rome Airport,
just days after Christmas.

The nightmare voyage of the
hijacked cruise ship Achille Lauro.

TWA flight 847, with 39 Americans,
taken hostage for 17 days.

Terrorists are not guerrillas

or freedom fighters
or anything else.

They are terrorists and they should
be identified as such.

♪ Home of the brave ♪

Safarini wanted to find out
if they were on the news.

Hijacking was something
that happened.

I knew that this might well be
the Westerners' problem.

There was a Pakistani man
and his daughter sitting

just beside me on the floor.

They were probably looking at me
thinking, "He's in front of us."

I was sitting next to
a middle-aged man and his wife.

I just whispered to the man,
"Where are you from?"

And he muttered back,
"North America."

It's not something that I'm proud of,
to think that, you know,

I would prefer the Americans
to be in front of me,

but... when it comes down to it,
that's what you do.

You work out the odds.

On the second time
when I went spoke to him,

his demand was better communication.

OK!

He was not that good in English.
He was asking the girl

what was I saying. And I said,

"Would it be alright if I stand on
top of the stair and speak to you?"

No!

I'll give you a walkie-talkie.
No!

He was angry and he said he wanted
to fly to Larnaca, Cyprus.

And he said
there were a lot of their friends

who were incarcerated in Larnaca.

And they want to go there
to get them released.

And he said, "Where is the crew?

I want the crew to come back
to fly the plane out."

I asked him, "Would you consider
letting the women and children go?"

No!

And he closed the door.

The Pakistani officials' approach
was,

"Let's get the crew back
and let's fly the aeroplane out."

They felt that if anything happens
to the aircraft

on the Pakistan soil, the Americans
are going to get upset.

I was told by the officials
that if need be,

they would get a volunteer crew
who would fly the plane out.

And I said,
"I have the responsibility

of 300 people on that plane.

Now the plane is on the ground
and we can negotiate,

we can talk and solve the problem.

But once up in the air,
nobody has control over that plane."

Safarini kept trying to see
if he was on the news.

But there wasn't anything.

And the first person in the aisle he
just grabbed and brought up front.

Medium height.
Looks like somebody from India.

And they were taking him.

Safarini said,
"If you don't get the pilots,

I'm going to shoot him."

He was so terrified
and he looked to me to...

to support him, to comfort him.

I said to him, "Don't worry.
I'm here. Nothing's gonna happen."

He asked him, "Why are you crying?
Are you a man?"

He was just... It was sad to see.

He did tell me that he was travelling
with his elderly grandmother.

And asked if I would look after her
should anything happen to him.

I assured him I would.

I said, "If you shoot him,

it'll be very difficult to convince
the government of Pakistan

to find somebody
to fly the plane out."

"Give me 20 minutes, I'll go back
to the officials, talk to them,

and then maybe
we can sort this out."

And he said, "OK."
OK!

He shot him in the head.

And this young man fell.
He slumped at my feet.

And then...

Safarini kicked his body out.

And that was the turning point.

Because he also said,

"Every 20 minutes, I'll bring
one passenger and shoot them."

Now the situation
was totally different.

Someone said, "They killed someone.
Someone got shot."

I don't remember hearing a shot,
but the fact that

they were starting to kill people
made me really nervous.

"What did I do wrong?"
was the biggest thought.

Like, "Oh, my God, how did I
get myself in this situation?

Why did I tell my mom
I wanted to go to India?"

Sitting in that seat, I felt...

...very frightened, and I felt I had
to try to get control of myself.

Safarini was... furious.

"They made me do it.
They made me do it.

I did not want to do it.
They made me do it."

He was talking about the Americans
and the Israelis.

Safarini told me
to collect passports.

He wanted white Americans
or Israeli.

I took my British passport
out of my pocket.

I thought this was a Pan Am plane
and it would be full of Americans.

If they were white Americans,

I just dropped their passports
into their laps.

I managed to drop
quite a few that way.

I heard, "Sunshine, come up front.
Come back, come back."

Give me American passport.

I wanted to try
and hide the passports.

I knew there was a risk.
I knew the way he was standing,

he could turn at the wrong moment
and see me,

but... I was trying to keep
the passengers from...

...being killed.

And I hid them under the seat.

I said,
"These are all Indian Americas,

so there's no white Americans
on board."

He said, "Who are these white people
on the plane?"

We explained to him that
they were different nationalities.

You know, some were British,
some Italian, there were Canadians.

His frustration was building up

because they've come into
an aircraft

which doesn't have American crew,

doesn't have enough American passengers,

the cockpit crew who were there left.

He didn't know what to do now.

There's no Americans. Now what?

"Can Michael John Thexton

please make his way
to the front of the plane."

I think I was... numb
hearing my name.

I was trying to convince myself that
there was some innocent explanation

and maybe they were gonna
let me off the plane.

Erm... but...
I kept coming back to the fact

that surely they were picking me out
to shoot me.

And it is not really possible
to describe in words how that feels.

The State Department in Washington
is following closely

the takeover
of a Pan American jumbo jet.

Four Arabic-speaking gunmen
demanded to be flown to Cyprus.

The hijackers,
dressed as security guards,

took over the airliner shortly after
it stopped over at Karachi.

They're known to have
automatic weapons with them

and have already shot one passenger
through the head.

I felt... absolutely desperate.

And I said, "My parents have
no-one else. Please don't hurt me."

And I tried to say something
about my brother's death.

But he just waved a hand as if to
say, "I haven't got time for that."

Peter was six years older than me.

He was the one
who did the exciting things.

He was the doctor
on an expedition to K2

in 1983

and he died of altitude sickness.

In 1986, I'd taken the summer off
to go on a mountaineering expedition

to the Karakoram Himalaya.

I wanted to... I wanted to see
where he died and say goodbye.

I was absolutely convinced
that I was gonna die.

The main thing I thought about
in that moment

was how sorry I was for my parents.

I thought about...
what they had gone through,

what we had all gone through,
when my brother died.

I just felt so sad

that they had lost my elder brother

and now they were gonna lose me,
as well.

I whispered
to one of the flight attendants,

"Please tell my family
that I love them very much."

He got me to open the door.

Safarini stood one of the flight
attendants in that crack of daylight

and she was speaking on a megaphone

to somebody who was under the plane.

OK!

Safarini used Mike Thexton
as a prod to Viraf.

He told me to tell you that...

You don't get the pilots,
I'm going to shoot... Him.

I thought that Safarini
would shoot me

and I'm just waiting
for that to happen.

At that point, I think I made

one of the toughest decisions
of my life.

I had no choice.

There is a staff member of mine
on the aeroplane.

I told him about one of my staff,

Meherjee Kharas,
an aircraft maintenance man,

trapped inside
when the hijackers took the plane,

who will work the cockpit
radio communication.

At least now he will be appeased

with better communication,
which he wanted,

and he would calm down
and not shoot anybody else.

Move.

Hello?

Flight 73.
Flight 73, I can hear you.

The way it was set up was

they would call
the operations office of Pan Am.

"Pan Am flight 73."

Safarini was not fluent in English.

He wanted to speak with somebody
in Arabic.

So eventually, somebody said that,
"OK, we found a gentleman

who used to work
for Saudi Arabian Airlines

in their catering services."

And we roped him in
to come and speak to him

from the operations office
in Arabic.

The man had never done
anything like this.

By that time, a government official
was already in my operations office.

He was telling him
what to tell the hijackers.

Now I'm not able to speak to him,
I don't know what he's saying.

That was the most defeating thing
for me.

At that point, of course,
we still didn't know

exactly who
these Palestinian people were

because no group had come forward
to claim responsibility.

They started the killing
very early on.

It must mean that they are one of
the professional Middle East gangs.

Possibly the Abu Nidal gang.

Pan Am 73 in September of 1986,
it's not a one-off event.

Libya has a finger in most terrorist
pies in one way or another.

Reagan and Gaddafi
had been confronting each other.

Like hornets in a bottle.

Gaddafi wanted to be the leader

of the radical world
against the West.

This mad dog of the Middle East
has a...

Reagan purposely tried to compare
Gaddafi to a dog,

which in Arab culture
is one of the biggest insults

you can make to a man.

The game kept getting raised
up, up, up and up.

At Vienna Airport, three men
threw four hand grenades,

opened up with Kalashnikov
submachine guns...

Libya was behind the attack
at the Rome and Vienna Airports.

Libya was targeting
US service people.

The wreckage of a night club
in Berlin,

a gathering place
for young American soldiers.

It was proven that Libya was behind

the La Belle Disco bombing
in West Berlin in '86.

President Reagan decided
he had to make a statement.

And kill Gaddafi.

Fellow Americans,
at seven o'clock this evening...

...air and naval forces
launched a series of strikes

against Muammar Gaddafi.

By golly, we were gonna show

the mad dog of the Middle East
America's back.

But the raid on Tripoli
was a failure.

And if you're gonna go after
the king,

you better kill him.

Gaddafi realised this was personal.

It was time for payback.

But it was a lot easier
to contract out the terror.

By having one step removed, there's
fewer fingerprints, less DNA.

I'll give him X million dollars,

and Abu Nidal, who himself
never went on these missions,

but he would recruit young believers
to carry it out.

Pan Am was the flagship US carrier.

Five months after
the raid on Gaddafi,

the attack on Pan Am 73 occurred
in Karachi, Pakistan.

At some point in the day,
they were going to make a demand,

it wasn't going to be met,
and they would shoot me.

I had this really strong thought

that you shouldn't let
the sun go down on your anger.

And I would offer
to shake Safarini's hand

if he came down
and said he was gonna shoot me.

I knew how a British gentleman
was supposed to behave

in this sort of extremity.

It was probably nonsense,

but... I found it comforting
in that moment.

It's very important to make sure
that the hijackers are calm

and they have trust in you.
I believe that we have established

that kind of rapport.
The situation remains the same.

They are wanting the American crew
to come and take them away.

The official of the government who
was sitting in the Pan Am office,

he was getting instructions
from the government of Pakistan.

My fear was, "How long will we
just communicate with them

without knowing what is
the next thing we want to do?"

So I went to see the state governor,

who was at the airport.

I went to ask him to tell me
what is plan B?

I was told, "I'm sorry, you can't
speak to the governor just now.

He's having his lunch."

Without thinking, I just said,

"300 people's lives are at stake
and he's having his lunch?"

Right in the tail of the aeroplane
is the aircraft power unit.

And that unit
supplies electrical power

and air-conditioning power
for the aircraft

whilst it is on the ground.

The APU is designed to run
for maybe two hours, three hours.

It's not designed to run
for 15 hours or 16 hours.

If the APU fails,

the aeroplane
will just heat up quickly

and it will be stiflingly hot inside
with people unable to breathe.

And there'll be no radio contact.

No communication. Nothing.

I spoke with a government official.

I said, "We need to have
a ground power unit connected

just in case the aircraft power unit
shuts down."

And he said, "I don't want
any piece of equipment

or vehicle near the plane."

And I have this late piece of copy
that has just been handed to me.

Pakistani officials
are saying that the hijackers

have offered to release
the Pan Am jet's passengers

if a flight crew is brought on board
and they are flown to Cyprus.

They communicated to him

that Pan Am had arranged
for a volunteer crew

which was on its way from Germany,
but it would take time.

By the afternoon,

press people found out
that we were in the operations room.

They were trying to get
into the office.

Phone lines were inundated,
non-stop, with people.

They had loved ones on the plane.

I was in graduate school in Seattle
at that time.

It was very early hours
of the morning.

My brother called me from Texas.

And he said,
"It appears that Pan Am's plane

has been hijacked in Karachi."

My parents were coming here
for a wedding

and the first trip
out of the country for both of them

was Pan Am flight 73.

They had never been outside
the country, either one of them.

The first reaction
is just pure disbelief.

And then there is this...

...absolute feeling of terror.

400 passengers and cabin attendants
are being held at this hour.

The hijackers have shot
one passenger, it seems,

through the head
and threw him off the aircraft.

Passengers were boarding
for a flight to New York,

but the cockpit crew escaped
just before the takeover.

Isn't this a dereliction of duty?
Absolutely not.

The commander of the plane did
exactly what we expected him to do.

It is long... Let me finish!
It's long-standing Pan Am...

Everybody was calling me.
"Have you heard anything more?"

The hijackers demanded a new flight
crew be brought to the plane

in exchange
for some of the passengers.

And they promise that as soon
as the crew is provided to them,

that they will release
the passengers.

All these horrific scenes
going through your mind

is absolutely terrorising.

My parents were on that plane.

After... Many, many hours...
I think seven, eight hours,

they were easing off, you know.

They calmed down.

For a long time,
we didn't have any food or drinks.

We were well into many hours.

Do you want a drink?

Beer? Whisky?

Er, a glass of water would be nice.

Get him a drink.

Eventually,
I remember them passing out

I think they were
cucumber and chutney sandwiches

or something of that sort.

It got monotonous.

Your mind kind of focuses
on different things.

Like, "Wow, why do they keep
playing this song?

There has to be another song."

I kind of shut down a little bit.

But eventually,

I heard this kid next to me
who was upset.

I wanted to make him feel better.

And playing with him
made me feel better.

A moment of happiness
in this really tense situation.

That little kid really helped me.

Yeah.

I was very scared, deep inside,

but, you know,
I was trying to look calm.

And trying to do
her elder sister's duty.

And that situation,

it was so tiring, so boring.

And my brother, Imran,
started to get angry.

He was planning just to take the gun
from the young guy.

My brother was six feet tall
and he was a sportsman.

He was an athlete and he had all the
qualities of an athlete, you know?

He said, "Let's go from this side,
I'll go from that side,

and we take the gun.

They're gonna kill us anyway.

Why are they all
sitting like ducks?"

And I still don't know
why people in that situation,

they just sit and don't do nothing.
Because they have guns.

Yeah, so maybe three people
be will be dead, four.

I was scared to lose him, you know?

I did not want my little brother dead.

So I was telling him to calm down.

Just hold on.

There was one point where
Safarini sat down opposite me.

Are you married?

I have a girlfriend.

And he just said,
"I'm sorry about this.

I don't like this fighting,
this killing.

I would like to go out dancing,
go out drinking, go out with women.

But the Americans and Israelis
have stolen my country,

and without my country,
these things are no good."

I wouldn't in any way
condone what he was doing.

But I remember feeling...

...sorry for him. He thought that
terrorism would do some good.

And yet it would only increase
all of the anger and suffering.

I just felt that
that was terribly sad.

But as time went on,

somehow I was beginning
to have some hope

that it would all resolve itself peacefully.

Safarini seemed to be
in control of the situation.

He didn't seem worried.

He said, "The captain's coming back
and we're gonna fly to Cyprus.

But where do you all wanna go?"
He was actually joking with us.

And he named Bangkok.

"Cos I can take you all anywhere."

He said, "It's my 24th birthday."

And he asked for me to open
a bottle of champagne.

Cheers.

Champagne is normally
for good times.

But I felt I had to drink with him.

He started flirting.

He asked me if I would go to the
disco with him if he came to Mumbai.

I saw a belt around his waist.

I asked what that was and he said,

"This has been given to me
by my mother to prevent pain."

It definitely looked like
it contained enough explosives

to blow up the entire plane.

That was the most stressful drink
of my life.

- What is this?
- It's OK!

Suddenly,
there was a loud, jarring sound.

Go! Go!
OK.

I told him, "It's OK. It's just
someone in the toilet smoking."

Safarini's mood got a lot worse.

He took me into the cockpit.

Soldier.

Soldier.

He was afraid of snipers outside.

Good morning. Pan American flight 73,

hijacked about 12 hours ago by four
gunmen, is still on the ground...

Back to the hijack, and Pan Am in
London has issued a telephone number

for anyone concerned about
passengers on the Karachi jet.

I suggested we listen to his demand

and put lights all around the plane
so that they'd know

there is no untoward incident
planned to try and storm the plane.

The officials wouldn't listen.

At this point,
I think he believed that

perhaps the negotiators
are stalling.

Safarini was upset.

"Clipper 73."

When the cockpit radio came on...

"Clipper 73, come in, please."

...he told me, "Ignore it."

Clipper 73, come in, please.

At that point, I knew...
Come in, please.

...that time was running out.

After running for 15 hours or so...

...the power unit finally shut down.

Move! What is this?

Kharas explained
the power had failed

and that the emergency lighting

would not last for longer
than 15 minutes,

after which it would not be possible
to restore the lights at all

and there would be no power
for the plane to take off.

There was a very bright light

right above
the first officer's seat.

Cover! Cover the light!

And Safarini believed
that people from the outside

could see very clearly
into the cockpit.

Clipper 73.

They said, "The aircraft is not
responding when we are calling out.

Maybe the APU has failed,

which means there is no way
to talk to the hijackers."

I said, "I've got to take a look."

Out!

Wake up!

Move!

The music had stopped, the hiss
of the air-conditioning had stopped,

and the lights were definitely
dimmer. And it was getting hotter.

Hey.

Move it! Up, up!

Jamal shook me awake,
- kept pushing me.
- Go!

Sit down! And everyone be quiet!

Get up. Get back.

Safarini saw me right in front
and he told me to go behind,

so I climbed over two people,

and he made me go further behind.

I said, "Is this OK?"
And he says, "Yes, sit."

I saw a window seat this time

and I thought,
"I'm back with the others.

I stand the same chance as anybody.

This is unbelievable."

I sat down on the floor
with Kharas seated in front of me.

It became challenging to even take
a nice, fresh breath of air.

And I just wanted
to get out of there.

I remember the lights flickering.

And then all of a sudden,
they shut off.

You, up.

Safarini said,
"Make an announcement.

I am trying to restore the lights."

Please stay quiet and do not move.

Sit.

When I got there,
the airplane was in total darkness.

I said,
"Let's put the tarmac lights on

so they know that
there's nothing happening."

He said, "There is no switches. We
cut the wire to put the lights off."

An older lady leaned forward to me
and very quietly said...

..."They're going to kill us now,
aren't they?"

I patted her arm and I said,

"No, no. It's going to be alright."

Everybody was bracing themselves

for whatever it was
that was going to happen.

And I got as low in the seat
as I could get.

I prayed.

I prayed continuously.

My brother, he told me,

"Just pray to God
and remember our parents.

This is it. We are gonna die."

I needed to convince Safarini

that we are doing everything
possible to get the power on again.

I instinctively... dropped

in between my seat
and the seat in front of me.

Cos... I didn't know
what was happening.

And I felt gun shells
hitting my arm.

I looked up and that's when I saw

that the hijacker was shooting...

everywhere, aimlessly.

The passengers were howling.

It was like mass howling.
It was unearthly.

The young hijacker...

..I saw him
throwing the hand grenade on us.

And the hand grenades
they threw on our feet.

My brother,
he was sitting next to me.

My leg and his leg,
we were all, like, you know,

blown up with the hand grenade.

And... I thought I'm dead.

I thought,

"This it is.
I don't think I'm gonna make it."

I looked down and I saw my, erm...

...co-worker, the Pan Am
maintenance man, Kharas...

...was no more.

Someone started climbing over me

to get into the aisle.

So I reached for the little boy
who I was playing with.

As I reached out for him,
I just saw him laying there,

like he was sleeping.

I just blocked him out of my mind.

And I just kept going.

I feel, erm... guilty.

Like, "Why did I live
and he didn't?"

The hijackers
began throwing hand grenades

and firing into the helpless people
huddled together.

When I opened my eyes,
I was alive and in so much pain.

You can imagine, if a hand grenade
blew up on your feet.

And then I try to get up from
my seat... Where was I at that time?

You were on the seat.
All of you were, like, fainted.

When the firing stopped,
there were cries of pain

that could be heard
throughout the cabin.

People started getting up
and running towards the doors.

I just remember everyone

just crowding around the door,
trying to get it open.

Somebody, I don't know who,
emergency open

and the people jump out.

So I drag her
and throw her from the chute.

It was easy for me
because she was petite and young.

And my brother was six feet tall.

It was not easy to drag him,

but I didn't give up.

Love make you very strong.

We got out as fast as we could,

either down the chutes or onto
the wing and jumping off the edge

and then...

I saw a gentleman leapt off the wing
and he fell

and I hear him screaming really loud
as he hit the ground.

When I was on the wing, I saw...

...two of the hijackers

jump off into the slide,

along with the passengers.

They threw all their weapons
to try and escape as a passenger.

I took my two kids
and I hid them under the chair.

And then I could see
their legs and hands,

so I didn't want them to get hurt
on their legs and hands,

so I laid myself on top of...

In the terminal building,
it was just chaos.

They took me to a hall area, which...

which... was just benches laid out

and bodies on it covered,

and they pulled back every sheet

to see if any of them
was a hijacker.

And none of them were.

Two of the terrorists
tried to escape.

They were set upon and beaten
by passengers on the ground

before being taken into custody
by Pakistani police.

They said
they had caught some people.

And they take me to this truck...

...with these three guys.

And they made them stand up,
look at me, and I identified them.

Then they took me to identify
the fourth guy.

Safarini was in hospital,
where they wheeled him out.

Safarini was injured.

Shot by one of his own men.

At the hospital,
it was a scene of complete chaos.

Doctors and nurses
were dealing with patients

on the floor and on beds.

When they were trying to take out
the shrapnel from my back,

I had cardiac arrest and they
announced me clinically dead.

I saw a flight attendant, Neerja,
on the floor

and I went to a doctor and I tugged
at his sleeve and I said,

"Come and help me." And he said,
"Everybody here is a critical case."

I kept calling Karachi
to get some information.

Eventually, I got a call

that said, "Your parents are safe."

After I... got the news,
it was this tremendous relief.

I can still remember thinking,
"This is not real.

I'm going to wake up in a minute
and I'll be back on that plane."

It's one of the biggest medical
evacuations Pakistan has ever seen.

Many still speechless in shock.

Also on the Bombay flight,
the remains of one of the dead,

as Indian hostess called Neerja,

her chipboard coffin shuddering up
the conveyer belt into the hold.

She was trying to help two children
to get out

while the shooting was taking place.

She was trying to get them out
through the door.

And in the process, she got shot.

Saturday morning,
my mother called me.

She said, very calm...

...very dignified, and she said...

..."Your father's life story
has come to an end."

That was the first thing
out of her mouth.

And I kept saying,
"Where is he? Where is he?"

And she said, "He is no more."

She said,
"I don't want you to get upset.

It'll hurt me more than
it'll hurt you if you lose it.

You hang in there." And...

I'll take a drink of water.

We keep asking everyone,
"How is Imran? How is Imran?"

And later on, we find out
that the whole hospital

was guided not to tell us
that he is no more with us.

Some of the shrapnels
go into his head.

He got heart attack and he died.

During that time,
I thought he's alive.

We went to the Sheraton

where they had a copy
of the local paper.

The headline was something like,

"Daring commando raid
frees hijack passengers."

Army commandos
approached the aircraft.

The hijackers apparently saw them
and began shooting.

And the commandos stormed the plane.

After hearing gunfire
and explosions,

Pakistani commandos
stormed the stricken plane,

firing their weapons.

There were no commandos there
to save us.

No, there were no security forces
around the airplane.

I looked when I came out, I looked
under the airplane and on the sides.

There was no Pakistani action
that I know of.

They didn't. That's all a fallacy.
No commandos came on.

They do say that
a lie goes round the world

before the truth
has got its trousers on.

It turns out
that Pakistani commandos

were actually storming the plane
at the same time

the panicked passengers were
rushing through the emergency doors.

Please come here.

Oh, this is the press conference.

How could four hijackers
inside the plane,

busy shooting at passengers,
hold back your commandos,

who you'd had all day
to get into place?

Don't mind it, but I haven't
understood a word from your accent.

Could somebody speak
in a different accent and let me...

At the point
when the shooting started,

the commandos, they were half a mile
away from the aircraft.

So by the time they would... get up

and pick up their weapons
and get into a bus and come there,

it was all over.

With me now is Pakistan's
ambassador to London.

There have been criticisms,
largely that it was 25 minutes

before your special guys
actually got on the plane.

I spoke to the Secretary of Defence
and he told me

that it took them
exactly three minutes

to reach the plane

and to save the people.

Ambassador, we must stop there.
Thank you so much for joining us.

President Zia was full of praise
for the way his security forces

handled the hijack crisis.

The Pakistani government at the time
saw Pan Am 73 as an embarrassment

that it took place on their watch,
if you will.

And they don't like to be embarrassed.

They deal with it by trying to
cover it up and make it go away.

I'm very proud of them because I
think the handling was professional,

it was bravely handled,

and the result was totally
what we expected.

The FBI turned up in Karachi
and interviewed people.

But General Zia was very firm

that the Pakistanis
would deal with the hijackers.

We have now a very effective law,

the punishment of which
is death sentence.

So I was aware of the trial

and I was aware that
they had been found guilty

and they were given a death sentence.

I just assumed that
that was how it was going to stay.

But after various reductions,
that just came down to being

a 15-year sentence, a very short
time for all those deaths.

Libya today categorically denied

that it was involved in any way
with the Karachi hijacking.

Politics, it's a game with rules
that are not written down.

And that's why professional
diplomats and politicians play it.

Administration officials
have been very cautious

about linking Libya
to the Pan Am hijacking.

Libya and Colonel Gaddafi, we cannot
connect this one at this time.

- Are you gonna look, however?
- Well,
we will always be, er, vigilant

in our efforts to find out
who commits acts of terrorism,

to prevent them and...

Why was the US hesitant to point to
Libya as the culprit in Pan Am 73?

Optics. Put it this way, I think it
was embarrassing for Ronald Reagan.

You know, trying to kill Gaddafi
in Tripoli

was a failure.

I thought you taught Gaddafi
a lesson,

but three months later,
he's, you know, doing this stuff.

But remember what Pan Am 73
was supposed to be.

It wasn't supposed to be carnage
on the ground in Karachi, Pakistan.

That is not what the terrorists
wanted to do.

They wanted to hijack a jumbo jet
loaded with fuel and passengers,

crash it into a symbolic target

in a spectacular suicide mission,
if you will,

and do it in a way that it'll be
broadcast around the world,

in every newspaper and television
station, for months and years.

Clearly Pan Am 73, in hindsight,

was a forerunner of the attacks
of September 11.

We've arrested a known terrorist,

Zaid Hassan Safarini.

He's not affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

Yet he's an example

of the wider war on terrorism
and what we intend to do.

Safarini?

We got him and today
the United States of America

will charge him with murder.

We travelled to Washington

for his hearing.

They were calling upon
all survivors,

witnesses,

family members, crew,

to testify in court.

I thought, "I have to see
what happens to him.

He was the man
that was going to shoot me."

I didn't wanna go.

I didn't want to see his face.

I wanted him to be dead.

Defendant Safarini
is directly responsible

for the deaths of 20 people,

the attempted murder
of about 358 other hostages,

and the injury of at least
100 surviving passengers and crew.

It was a shock to see Safarini
in shackles, surrounded by marshals.

He looked very different.

I thought he looked
a pathetic, broken man.

I do remember calling him a murderer

and how he cost the lives
of many people,

and how he just didn't hurt them,

he hurt their loved ones
and their family.

He spoke with a dead voice,

like, "I am sorry
for what happened, blah, blah."

Like, no remorse at all.

I don't think that any apology
that he could've given

would have remotely satisfied

the people who were
so angry with him.

I'll be very honest, I didn't wish
a death penalty for him,

simply because that would be
too sweet and too sudden for him.

Mr Safarini,
you have pleaded guilty.

Are you prepared to be sentenced?

The sentence that he was given,

it almost sounds medieval.

The total agreed-upon sentence...

...is 160 years in prison.

I'm disappointed.
I think he deserves worse.

Tell us now what you told the court

about what you'd like to do
with the defendant.

No, not on camera.

He's gonna live his life
thinking about why he's there.

And I hope he suffers.

I got a call
from several family members.

Effectively,
what I do is I pursue claims

against sovereign governments.

They came to me and said, "We've
read about you, heard about you.

Do you think you could take on
our case against Libya for PA73?

That's what we want. Justice.

We want a judge to say
Libya did it."

And we were fairly close
to going to trial.

But... there's a bigger diplomatic
stage beyond the courtroom.

Politics will trump justice.

And after 9/11,
things changed dramatically.

Blair made his trip to the desert
to welcome Muammar Gaddafi

back in from the cold.

Gaddafi had got out
of the terrorism business.

He actually was cooperating
on going after Al-Qaeda.

And he was back on the world stage.
Extraordinary. A mass murderer.

Gaddafi gave up his WMD
and he gave the West what it wanted.

Clean oil, easy to get,
cheap to transport.

You now have Gaddafi
as a source of intel

rather than
as the focus of the intel.

In 2008, President Bush and Gaddafi
entered into

a $1.5 billion settlement

to resolve all pending cases
against Libya.

Pan Am 73 was one of them,

but only Americans
are included in the settlement.

How about food
and something to drink?

Passengers must have been asking
plenty of questions.

From the beginning,
there was no panic.

Passengers were calm
and supportive of our efforts.

We were, as much as it was possible,
in low voices,

keeping passengers...

They had an awards ceremony
where the hijack crew got a pen.

It has the Pan Am logo on it.

A gift for your...
Yeah. For...

For whatever. Our bravery.

I don't know what it was for.
It was just a gesture.

And, erm...
yep, I've kept it all these years.

And this is a letter
from one of the passengers.

"I want you to know
how appreciative I am

of the courageous action you took

in hiding the passports
of the American passengers.

My sincere thanks
for your quick thinking and bravery.

I hope to hear from you soon."

That's a nice letter.
Yeah, it is. It was... It was nice.

I didn't expect anything like that.

Because everyone was so traumatised,
you know.

But it... it was nice of him.

I get flashbacks of what happened

and I... think a lot of it
was guilt.

And I think that was the most
difficult thing to carry on with.

Not because I survived,
but because I couldn't do more.

And these are some letters
that I wrote to and received

from Zaid Safarini in jail.

In the supermax facility.

I wrote, really, because I thought

if he were to say publicly

that he now realised
it was a mistake,

that might discourage
somebody, somewhere

from doing something similar. Erm...

I asked him the questions
that I wanted answers to.

I've never understood what triggered
the end of the hijack

and the violence.

He said, "I will be more than glad

to discuss with you
any subject you wish to talk about.

I strongly believe this is
your basic right to know everything.

If you wish,
you can send me your phone number

and I will try to call you one day."

Yes.

I just wonder, what did you hope
would happen?"Ohh."

Do you remember?

I was expecting
that you would shoot me.

And you didn't, you know.

You put me back with the others.

My brother had died in the mountains, yes.

Wow.

Thank you, Zaid. Goodbye.
"Bye-bye."

It doesn't really change
how awful it was

for all those people. It just...

...makes me feel
that my brother saved my life.

This is a picture of my brother, Imran.

I named my son after my brother

and he has all the qualities
of my brother.

- He's very brave.
- Oh, my God.
He's something else.

Sometimes it feels like
he has his soul.

He's very bold.

He's very kind, compassionate. And...

...actually,
he's the reason I am alive.