SPEAKER_08 0:00

In Pakistan, the hijacking of Pan American Flight 73 comes to an end in gunfire and bloodshed. From ABC, this is World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Good evening. The hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 is over, but the cost has been very high. Many passengers who were on board the plane are in shock. Many have been wounded in the final orgy of violence. And some passengers, plus two of the hijackers, have been killed. There is still such confusion in Pakistan tonight that no one is absolutely certain how many people are dead and wounded. In the reports from there tonight, the Associated Press is reporting that as many as 16 people have died. The Reuters News Agency is saying seven. It appears to be clear from the overall tenor that there is more than a dozen people who are dead, and we do not know how many are wounded. Some people said a few. Some people at an earlier stage said as many as a hundred. But we do not know at this point, nor does the administration, nor, as best we can tell, do the Pakistanis. There were almost 400 people on board for those many, many hours. And it was late at night when the end began. Here's ABC's John Mackenzie.

SPEAKER_04 1:14

It was 10 o'clock at night in Karachi. The Pan American jets stood parked on the tarmac. Hundreds of heavily armed security forces moved to surround it. Doctors and ambulances waited nearby. Then suddenly, according to eyewitnesses, the hijackers opened fire, shooting passengers indiscriminately. The security forces stormed the plane. The shootout on the plane ended a day-long standoff on the tarmac as Pakistani officials talked to the hijackers. Pan Am Flight 73 originated in Bombay. It stopped in Karachi to refuel and was supposed to go on to Frankfurt and then New York. But here in Karachi, four men dressed in airport security uniforms and armed with automatic weapons and hand grenades stormed the plane as the last passengers were boarding.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Our bus went up to the part where we were supposed to embark on the plane, but they closed the doors and we saw an air host test being taken at gunpoint, and we saw the crew who was jumping down.

SPEAKER_04 2:14

Two airport workers were shot. Later they described what they saw.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

I was grazed by a bullet which hit me on the hip, and then I passed out, and I don't know what happened.

SPEAKER_11 2:42

Suddenly a bullet was shot from the American plane's hide, and uh the bullet hit my hand, and my fellow worker just pulled me away and took me away.

SPEAKER_04 2:49

Just after the initial attack, the hijacker shot one passenger, a naturalized American of Indian descent, named Rajish Kumar. He was dumped in the tarmac, carried away on a stretcher, and later died in the hospital. Later, the hijackers said they were sorry about the killing.

SPEAKER_09 3:05

And we saw a crew member jumping out of the plane window. And we saw him catching hold of a rope and uh were jump by.

SPEAKER_04 3:14

Alerted by the gunfire, the three-man American flight crew left the cockpit through a hatch and slid down cables to safety. But the gunman demanded another flight crew. Pakistani officials said the gunmen wanted to fly under Cyprus to get several of their comrades released from prison there. They threatened to kill the passengers if they weren't given the pilots.

SPEAKER_10 3:33

You see, it is very important to make sure that they are not nervous. It's very important to make sure that they are calm and they're they're not and they have trust in you. I believe that we have established that kind of wrap-off.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

The question left tonight is how did the situation suddenly erupt into a bloodbath? And how the hijackers were able to penetrate security at an airport which even Americans said was very safe. Until today. John Mackenzie, ABC News.

SPEAKER_08 4:00

Well, we'll try to answer those last two questions in this broadcast. It was the middle of the night when the 747's auxiliary power, or APUs, basically ran out of energy. The sky was dark, and then the plane got dark. And that's when the panic began. Not long after it ended, we talked to one of the passengers, Darrell Piper of California.

SPEAKER_05 4:21

They had been carrying around in their hands. First, they had two machine guns, they had a 45 pistol, and they had I'm not sure how many, but four or five uh hand grenades. And suddenly when the lights were going off, why uh two hand grenades went off in the rear of the plane, and some machine gun fire was sounding in the front of the plane, and at that time why uh the man next to me hit the uh escape uh hat chute, and the plane came down and uh we fled out of the plane.

SPEAKER_08 4:56

At least one eyewitness, Mr. Piper, has told the American consulate in Karachi that the hijackers opened fire point blank on people. Are you aware of that?

SPEAKER_05 5:06

Uh, I'm sure that that must have happened because there's an awful lot of passengers who were walking around in the terminal afterwards that had blood on them that was not their blood.

SPEAKER_08 5:17

You must have been, if this is not too silly a thing to say, terrified for many minutes as the end came.

SPEAKER_05 5:25

Uh, it happened too fast to be terrified. Uh, I was right there at the uh exit door, and suddenly it started swinging open. The slide came down, and uh there was no time to think. It was just go.

SPEAKER_08 5:40

You seem very much together at the moment. How did your fellow passengers react to all this?

SPEAKER_05 5:45

Those of us who are basically unscathed, why uh we all feel pretty happy now.

SPEAKER_06 5:52

Many others, of course, are not. This is World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, brought to you by Kellogg's Special K.

SPEAKER_12 6:04

This is a special Flight 73 memorial edition of this program. You just heard a clip from ABC News on the evening of September 5th, 1986, when most Americans learned the terrifying news. Earlier that day, around 510 a.m. local time in Karachi, Pakistan, a Pan Am Boeing 747 named Clipper Empress of the Seas was hijacked by four armed Palestinian commandos on the ground during the boarding process, with almost 400 people on the aircraft. The flight originated in Bombay, India, now called Mumbai, and had a short stop scheduled in Karachi to pick up additional passengers, and was then scheduled to travel to Frankfurt, Germany, and then on to New York City, the final destination. A total of 20 people, including two Pan Am crew members and 18 passengers, were ultimately killed in this act of terrorism. The four hijackers were dressed as airport security guards and were armed with assault rifles, pistols, and hand grenades. The lead terrorist wore a plastic explosive suicide belt. The hijackers drove a van that had been modified to look like an airport security vehicle through a security checkpoint right up to one of the boarding stairways to the Pan Am Jumbo jet. After the flight deck was informed of a hijacking in progress by the flight attendants, the captain, first officer, and flight engineer followed company safety procedures and were able to escape the plane using the cockpit emergency hatch, repelling down to the ground and running to safety. At the time, this action was criticized by some. However, through a post-9-11 lens, their actions were absolutely the right thing to do, as the aircraft itself, loaded with jet fuel, could have become a devastating weapon of mass destruction. The hijackers killed one passenger and threw him off the plane during the tense hostage negotiations. Later, after over 16 tense hours inside the aircraft, the plane's energy depleted, plunging the cabin into darkness, and the hijackers opened fire, resulting in the death of two crew members and 18 passengers, with over 120 people injured. Let's take a listen to another clip from ABC News when American television networks interrupted regularly scheduled programming to break the news. This news report features statements by Pan Am's Marty Shagrew and White House spokesman Larry Speaks. The clip is about four minutes long.

SPEAKER_08 8:51

We're waiting for Larry Speaks, for example, the White House spokesman. But at this moment in New York City, Martin Shagrew, who is the vice chairman of Pan American, has been giving a news conference as well. And here's a portion of what he's had to say.

SPEAKER_07 9:04

Failure of the aircraft APU after 17 hours of operation was the beginning of the end of the takeover. When the auxiliary power unit failed, the lights on the aircraft went out, as did the radio. Outside tarmac lights were turned on, but then failed. The hijackers apparently thought the darkness to be the start of an attack by security forces and began to herd the hostages into the center of the aircraft. This gave the cabin attendants a chance to open exit doors and inflate evacuation slides, beginning a swift exit from the aircraft in the dark amid gunfire and grenades thrown by the hijackers. Airport security forces attacked the aircraft when they saw the hostages begin to flee, capturing two of them and killing the other two while freeing the remaining hostages. Unfortunately, there were casualties among passengers and Pan Am staff. Our best information at this time is that there are 14 casualties, including the valiant Pan Am mechanic who maintained radio communication between the hijackers and the authorities throughout this long ordeal. We are deeply saddened and stunned at the senseless violence which has shadowed the lives of innocent travelers today. Our hearts are extended to the families and loved ones of the victims of this atrocity.

SPEAKER_08 10:26

Martin Shagru, who's the vice chairman of uh Pan American, again indicating to you in no small way how confusing things still are because he says four hijackers, whereas the State Department says five. I know a great many people want to know about their relatives who were traveling on board. Many of the Americans on board are of Indian origin, and we're traveling back from Bombay where the flight originated. But if you are seeking information, you can call Washington 202-647-6530. Here is the White House spokesman, Larry Speaks.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

The hijacking of an American Pan American Airways flight 73 at Pakistan's Karachi International Airport was a cruel and sinister terrorist act. Our hearts are filled with sympathy for the families of those innocents killed and injured. The government of Pakistan acted boldly and decisively to bring this nightmare to an end, and we applaud Pakistan's exemplary resolve in handling this incident. Pan American Airways should also be commended for their cool and professional competence in helping to ensure this incident could be concluded where it started. The terrorists conducted a despicable and cowardly crime by threatening, assaulting, and murdering innocent passengers on a crowded airliner, men, women, young and old, with machine guns and hand grenades. Nothing can justify such barbarism. We can think of no punishment too severe for the criminals responsible. We are confident that those who perpetrated this brutal act will be brought to justice. We thank God this incident is now ended with the safe deliverance of most of those who had to endure the ordeal inflicted on them and of all civilized society. The President and the First Lady express their condolences to the families of those killed and pray for the speedy recovery of those injured. We look forward to the safe and speedy reunion of the passengers with their families and loved ones.

SPEAKER_12 12:46

One of the Pan Am flight attendants, 22-year-old senior purser Neirdra Banot, who died as a result of her injuries, was posthumously awarded India's highest civilian peacetime honor for bravery, the Ashokra Chakra, and became a revered national figure in India. Twenty-eight-year-old Pan Am mechanic Mahirdri Karas was also killed by the terrorists. Both served their passengers with great honor and valor. For this special memorial edition of this program, we are joined by four Pan Am flight attendants that were on Flight 73 and were eyewitnesses to history. They also served their passengers with great courage and bravery and saved hundreds of lives. Our guests are Sunshine Vesawala, Shireen Pavan, Madvi Bahogana, and Samira Good. This is the first time that these four flight attendants talked about their events of September 5, 1986 together. We caution that some of our listeners may find the graphic details and language in our interview to be disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. Also, we understand that we are presenting a very long episode here, more than two and a half hours. These four incredible women share their first hand account of the terrorist attack, and their story should be preserved for history. Before our interview, it is important and appropriate to say the names of each of the Pan Am crew members and passengers that were killed on that terrible day in September of 1986. Sunshine's husband KOs will read the names.

SPEAKER_11 14:35

We remember them. From Pakistan, Merji Minotcher Karas, Panam mechanic, and the passengers from India, Rukti Dalal, Rupal Desai, Krishna Kumari Gade, Sitaram, Krishna Swami, Kodaya to Kurai, Bobi, Hama Chen Molur, Hama Chen, Tamas Malur, Aliyama, Skarya Naga Holi, Ramakant, Kover Ben Patel, Ghana Pati, Khani Kumani, Kala Singh, and from Pakistan, Sayyid Nasser Emad, Imran Rizvi, from Mexico, Jose Alvarez Lumar Nunes, Ricardo Monoz Rosells, and passengers from the United States, Rajesh Kumar, and Surendra Manubai Patel.

SPEAKER_12 15:59

Now on to our interview. I would like to welcome all of you to this special program. I understand this is the first time that all four of you have spoken about Flight 73 together. Before we talk about what happened on September 5th, 1986, let's talk about why you wanted to become a flight attendant. So, Maudvi, why don't we start with you?

SPEAKER_15 16:22

I wanted to become a flight attendant because I had graduated culinary school of management, which was directly relative to being out in the industry service industry. So I felt it kind of connected. I wanted to be a flight attendant to see the world. I wanted to enjoy the privileges of the world.

SPEAKER_12 16:48

Sunshine, how about you?

SPEAKER_13 16:50

I wanted to be a flight attendant since the time I was a kid. And I don't know why. I just love the idea of flying. I love the idea of being in a plane, and I love the idea of uh seeing places. So even though I did a BCOM and did everything the right way, in case I never got used to being a flight attendant, it was my main goal. So at the time when I applied to Pan Am, I'd applied to four or five airlines, and this one came first. Saudi came next. I took Pan Am.

SPEAKER_12 17:19

And why did you choose Panam Sunshine?

SPEAKER_13 17:22

Uh well, my mother used to be in the travel industry, and we well, Pan Am was the first one to offer me a job. Uh but my mother used to be in the travel industry way, way back. And Pan Am was really a world-class airline. It was something to be proud of. It was just it just had such a name out there that it just um instilled uh pride in flying for the airline.

SPEAKER_12 17:48

Shereen, how about you?

SPEAKER_16 17:50

Before Pan Am, I worked as a research assistant at a postgraduate university. While I was there, I definitely felt I wanted to travel internationally, and I thought the best way would be to join the airlines. So I applied for Pan Am at that time because I really did want to travel. I thought I would uh travel for a year and then I had come back to the field of research. Samira.

SPEAKER_14 18:16

Well, I always had a passion for travel, and so when I graduated from college, I kind of figured out that if I worked for an airline, I would get paid to do what I love to do. This was the first time Pan Am was hiring in Bombay. We all knew that it was a great international airline, so I applied. And I think they hired 85 flight attendants out of the 1,500 that applied or something like that.

SPEAKER_16 18:45

Yes, 10,500 applications.

SPEAKER_14 18:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_13 18:51

Yeah. Yeah. And I think they hired 100.

SPEAKER_12 18:57

Tell me about the training process and meeting each other for the first time.

SPEAKER_16 19:03

So we were hired um out of Bombay and then we went for our training. We were sent to Miami, Florida, and to London after that. Um, when we returned from uh London, we returned to Bombay, which was to be our uh base, our home base, and we were to fly out of there.

SPEAKER_13 19:24

We had a six-week training in Miami, which was great. It was a lot of fun. Uh I don't think any of us were in the same match. We only met after we started flying. So um it like everyone came in stages. So one week after I um flew out. Um I was the first match with the uh flew out on boxing day. I think a week or two weeks later, the next match came and so forth. I think there were six matches and we had six weeks training. A lot of it was uh civil service, and we had one week of really intensive emergency training, and uh uh took exams, learned everything we had to went back to London to do an onboard. I forget what it was, but went to London for a week and then flew home. And uh at the end of it, and that's soon after that we started flying.

SPEAKER_14 20:22

Yes, that time in London was when we actually got to do hands-on practice on a 747 because the airplanes were not flying at night, and so we used to go uh in the evening and uh practice service and emergency procedures on an actual 747.

SPEAKER_13 20:42

That was the best time it gave us all day to shop.

SPEAKER_12 20:48

And was this your first uh opportunity to travel internationally?

SPEAKER_15 20:52

For me, yes. This is Marthi. I just wanted to add to the training that uh yes, I was in the first batch of training that went out. Uh, it was wonderful to seeing, you know, the the training, experiencing the training, the ditching was the best part of the training. I'm sure it is for everybody who goes for training. Um just the whole aura of Pan American, Eastern, just it brought it all together. The training was pretty in-depth. In like everybody said, Went to London.

SPEAKER_12 21:23

Was this the first time that you were able to travel internationally to Miami?

SPEAKER_15 21:28

Yes, yes, that's right. Yeah, it was my first international travel. It was overwhelming. First time I sat in first class, which is the seat that I got traveling to Miami all the way from Mumbai. So I had never experienced a first class seat, never experienced uh being on escalators once we landed, Miami airport. It was a whole world different. It was a whole world different. The excitement of like somebody like literally newborn. It was something like this because. Leaving your country. That was my experience.

SPEAKER_12 22:02

Shereen, what was your experience?

SPEAKER_16 22:04

For me, I had traveled uh domestically within India. So to travel internationally was great fun. When we arrived at Miami, it was really interesting. I was really impressed with the uh service training as well as the emergency training. I think it taught us all a lot. In our respective cohorts, we were uh we bonded well. Yes, it was exciting as Madhvi says. And when we came back to India, we were ready and uh to start flying, and we were really a good team, I felt.

SPEAKER_13 22:34

This is sunshine here. I just have something to say about the training. Uh we flew with Delta, and we, you know, some people went to other airlines and some uh stuff like that. But I don't think the training compared to Pan Am training, it was so intense and it was so thorough. It really was excellent. Excellent. When it came to service, when it came to first aid, all all of that. The uh flight service handbook that we had was so detailed. You could look up anything in that, and we carried it on every flight. Samira, what was your experience like?

SPEAKER_14 23:16

I really enjoyed it. My family uh loved to travel, so we always took off during summer vacations uh to different destinations in India. However, when I got hired with Pan Am, this was my first international travel. And yes, as Martby said, sitting in first class was a wonderful feeling. What was it, six weeks in Miami and two weeks in London was the longest I'd ever been away from home. But we were all young, we were all pretty much fresh out of college, enthusiastic, and we enjoyed many of us bonded and made lasting friendships. We had great camaraderie. We helped each other, we had study groups in the evening where we would go over our procedures and help each other. So it was a great bonding experience.

SPEAKER_12 24:11

Let's go to September 5th, 1986. How did the day start for each of you?

SPEAKER_13 24:18

Can I go first? This is sunshine.

SPEAKER_12 24:20

Of course.

SPEAKER_13 24:21

I was working in the back, so the airplane was all set. We had passengers getting on and stuff like that. And uh the mid-galley, I was doing the galley uh position. The mid-galley had uh we had the older airplane, I forget the model. It didn't have the carts, it had those, you had to run every tray. And uh it had bev carts, but not the meal carts. But thank God, I mean, uh to be honest with you, if we had had carts there, there would have been 10 more people who would have been who would have been shocked. Because once the trays emptied out and were used, they could actually use the bottom part of that counter to hide it and get out of the aisle. It gave us more room in the aisles in between the labs and all that kind of stuff. But when I took one look at that, it was like, are they kidding? But it saved some lives.

SPEAKER_12 25:18

Shireen, how did the day start off for you?

SPEAKER_16 25:21

Well, I was uh working the aft galley and I was outside of the aft galley. We were waiting for passengers to board. We were on the tarmac at Karachi, and we had the first two doors, the L1 and the L2 doors. The doors on the left were open with the air stairs coming up, and we were waiting for the last pass of passengers to board when um we realized there was some trouble.

SPEAKER_12 25:49

And Madvi, how did the day start for you?

SPEAKER_15 25:52

Hey, see yeah, this is Madvi. I was right up by the L2 door where the first set of hijackers came up. We literally saw them, actually didn't see them, hear them before we saw them. They came stomping up with their big boots on the steel uh aluminum or steel stairwell that is attached to the door because we were not attached to a jetway. Uh, we heard this big banging noise coming up. They they fired a few shots up in the air. Samira and me will have pretty much the same kind of experience because we were both together on the same area of the airplane in L2. And the first initial reaction of me, and I think the couple of the flight attendants that were there in that area was this is Pan Americans' way to see if we are vigilant, if we remember our training, if we practice our training skills. That was the first thing that came to my mind, and I think it was like an echo literally over there. So I was standing right by the door, and I grabbed the phone and dialed the cockpit and said the coat. And um, and that was the the very beginning of the day for me.

SPEAKER_16 27:04

So um, this is Shereen. I just want to add to what Marvi just said. Training really kicked in as soon as uh we saw what was happening. I was standing at the L4 door right next to the jump seat, and I saw uh when I looked up front towards the business class area, I saw at the clipper section that a man had come in the security uniform and he was he had uh pointed his gun at people and he was saying, hands up, and all our business class passengers were on their knees with their hands behind their heads or up in the air. And I knew straight away that something was wrong. So I crouched down behind the L1, L4 jump seat and I picked it up and um tried to get through to the cockpit. I couldn't get through. So I put the interphone back, I ran across the galley to the uh R4 jump seat. I sat down there with the interphone in my hand. I picked it up and I said, uh, this is R4. There are men in the cabin with guns. And then I gave the code to say that a hijacking was taking place right then. And um I didn't hear anyone speak initially. Initially, I heard somebody speak in an unintelligible American accent. I was really keen on just getting my uh message across. So I repeated it and um I knew that someone was on the line listening. I took a step back then because I saw one of the gunmen coming down the aisle with one of our pursers. So I took a step back and stood up and I put my hands up slowly and pretended I had been standing there the whole time. I didn't want the hijackers to be angry at having seen me make a call.

SPEAKER_13 28:49

This is sunshine. Just a quick update on how I felt. Firstly, I don't uh I was working the meal position of the back, not the galley. Um, when the guys came up at L1, I was at L1 and they came running up, and they hadn't shot or done anything yet, but they grabbed one of the passengers, and I thought there was something uh wrong with the passenger. Maybe he was, you know. So I went to peek and see what was just being nosy. It uh I thought one of the passengers were getting into trouble.

SPEAKER_12 29:24

Samira, uh, how did the day start for you?

SPEAKER_14 29:28

So flight 73 was going Bombay, transiting in Karachi to Frankfurt. So we're all on the ground in Karachi. I was having a cup of tea with Madvi in the galley, waiting for the passengers from Karachi to board the airplane. We heard this ruckus outside and saw uh men dressed in security uniforms come running up the staircase with uh guns in their hands. And we thought, yes, there was a problem, we just didn't know what it was. But then they came on board and fired around in the air, trying to get everybody's attention. And that's when we knew it was something more serious than just a passenger problem. They continued firing in the air, and then one of them went towards the back of the airplane, and another one went up the staircase towards the cockpit, and the other two started gathering all the remaining passengers shooting in the air and bringing the first class passengers towards the center of the airplane and the ones from the back towards the center. So eventually we were all in the middle of the aircraft between I think it would be the C and D zones, and they were still firing in the air and getting all the passengers together in one area. And that was the first time I understood the meaning of teeth chattering in fear, because I actually experienced my teeth chattering. And I was like, okay, uh, you know, it's it's instant fear when you're in a closed cabin and you have armed people shooting in the air to our listeners.

SPEAKER_12 31:13

Just as a reminder, this is the first time that these four incredible women are talking about what happened on September 5th together. Let's talk about what was going through your minds when you saw these armed terrorists taking over the plane. Who would like to go first? I know Samira just talked a little bit about what she was feeling.

SPEAKER_15 31:37

This is Madvi. And um, like I said, I still felt under that under not shell shocked at all. I just felt it was just Panam's way of uh checking to see if we are following our training. So I was operating a lot under that autopilot. What was trained to me was coming out, what they asked us to do was uh emoting. I don't feel personally me, I did not feel fear at all. Um just because I think I started with the first thought that it was just Pan Am's way. So, but by the time the the reality of the hijacking set in, at that point, I feel I I I was able to then uh understand what was going on. And so I didn't go from not knowing to fear. It it took gradual stages, that was for me. So I really did not feel the fear, but I it uh I was lucky that I was able to see it as a training propaganda shreen.

SPEAKER_16 32:44

I just wanted to uh say something. Uh for me, the I felt an extreme adrenaline rush at that point. There had been a Pan Am cleaner in the galley who said, Hey, look, one of our security guards has caught a smuggler. And I looked up and I knew that even though the uh armed gunmen were in the dress code of um the Pakistan ground security, I felt something was completely off. And the as uh the others said, I went into training mode and because of that adrenaline rush, I just had felt I had to get my message across to the cockpit. There was no time for me to feel that fear at that point.

SPEAKER_12 33:26

Sunshine, what was going through your mind when all of this was transpiring?

SPEAKER_13 33:31

I realized right away that uh it was serious after they came up and grabbed Nadra. And um, I was a bit in shock for maybe a few seconds, and then after that, my way of dealing with stress is laughing it off. So I just uh the first thought that went through my mind was if this is how it's going to be, couldn't they be better looking? So I was just keeping myself cheerful and upbeat rather than because it was either that or uh or panic. I don't know because everyone was uh in shock and nobody was reacting because we were waiting to see why these guys were on board. We were right up there when at the door when they came rushing up. So uh we could interpret it either way, maybe it was uh criminal or it was, you know. So for me it was like, oh god, did they have to be so awful looking?

SPEAKER_12 34:42

So Madvi and Shireen, you notified the cockpit that there were hijackers on board. When did the four of you realize that the pilots were able to escape?

SPEAKER_16 34:56

This is Shereen. Uh so for me, um, we had been uh after they uh took over the airplane and after the takeover phase, we had been asked to be seated with uh the and have the window shades lowered. At that point, there was an announcement made for um a cockpit, uh somebody who could operate the cockpit radio. And that's when I realized that there was no one in the cockpit, that the cockpit crew were either were dead, and that's what I thought, because I knew I had spoken to somebody. So at that particular point I thought that they were dead.

SPEAKER_12 35:33

Was there anyone upstairs, any crew members upstairs?

SPEAKER_15 35:38

This is Madhvi. And yes, um oh, I I just forgot who was upstairs. Was it Astrid? Astrid. Astrid, thank you. I thought, and so yes, Astrid was upstairs. And um going back to the other question that you asked, uh, when did we get to know? Astrid then came down to the second where I was with Samira and the rest, came down to the two doors, and uh she came down, and at that time she said the cockpit closed the door. And I did not know, and I don't think uh anybody near me immediately knew until uh quite a bit, like a few hours, I want to say, into the hijacking that the the pilots had left. And I love that what Shireen said, and like you said, we are first time talking. Uh, I never even thought of calculating the way Shireen just expressed that, hey, if they made that announcement, it is a clear indication there's nobody in the cockpit. Um again, it could be attributed to the point of my thought processes at that time or the place that I was in my mental state. But I know Astrid was downstairs and she was with us because I was at two doors in when you come down the upper deck, you're coming straight into the first, I was at one door, sorry. Uh uh, you'll come straight down to the first class galley where we were. And so, no, I did not know. I think a few hours into the hijacking that we had no pilots.

SPEAKER_13 37:14

This is sunshine. I knew within the first, I would say 15 minutes that the cockpit was gone because uh when when they came on board after they grabbed hold of Nirja, and uh the lead hijacker called me to him and he asked me, uh he asked me what was up there, and I said, It's it's just what's that? I said it's upstairs. So he says, What's upstairs? I said, upstairs, like totally dumb. Like I was like acting totally dumb. So he said, You come with me, and he took me upstairs. And Astrid was there with uh the passengers, and she was just sitting. So uh when he realized there were people there, he said, Who are these? I said, They're passengers. He said, uh, get up, get up. And he made them come down along with Astrid. Then he took me up again and he said, Where's the cockpit? I said, I don't know. I'm not allowed to go into the cockpit. Uh where's the cockpit? I said, I don't know. So he comes up and he says, What's that door? And I said, That's the that's a door. I don't know what's behind that. I'm not allowed in this park. I work in the bank. He's uh so then then he said, Uh, maybe it's the cockpit. I said, Okay. And I knocked on the door and I kept yelling, Captain, Captain, are you there? Captain, Captain, are you there? Because I was hoping that they had escaped, because it's a matter of lives. At this point, everybody knew it was for real. And if I could give them a little time, if they were trying to escape, I wanted to give it to them. So I kept knocking. Captain, Captain, are you there? And finally pushed me aside and kicked the door. Took him all of one second, and uh the cockpit was empty, the uh escape hatch was open and there were the Inoshia reels hanging on the outside. So um I came in and I said, Looks like they're not there. They're uh everyone's gone. And uh he said, Where are they? I said, I don't know, I've never been this part of the aircraft. Um and I uh stood in front of one of the windows because the inertia reels which were dangling down the side of the aircraft were outside the window. You could see them dangling outside uh the window inside the cockpit. So I stood to the side facing him and backing back, so I was blocking his view. He looked around, um, he didn't see the hatch open, he was too busy looking around. And um, there's a little there used, there was a jump seat, there was a fire axe on the flight engineer's table, and at the back there's a spare jump seat and a little niche where the uh cockpit crew would hang their jackets and stuff. So he asked me, What's there? What's there? And he pushed my head into that area with the gun. And uh I said, nothing, I can't see anything. And he hit my head hard with the gun and said, Look in. And I didn't want to tell him I had a flashlight. In the end, I had to because now I was nearly falling headfirst into this area. So I put the flashlight on and there was no one there. He came out and he took me down again. He still hadn't noticed the escape hatch, and I didn't know if they were halfway down because it's a slow inertia reel as far as we were trained. So I didn't know if they were halfway down, went out again, came down again, and um, so I knew pretty much right away that they were gone.

SPEAKER_12 41:02

And what was going through your mind? Were you were you happy they were gone?

SPEAKER_13 41:06

Yes, I was extremely happy they were gone because uh even though in my head I was uh trying to keep myself uh, you know, cheerful and make jokes in my own mind and keep myself going. At the end of it, I knew that uh these guys were armed, they're already shot into the air, they meant business, and if three lives were being saved, so be it. I'm I was thankful. I didn't think of the bigger implications of being safer on ground than in the air. To me, it was a question of lives now, it was just lives.

SPEAKER_12 41:38

And for our listeners, this is 1986, and there was some controversy over the flight crew and the pilots escaping, but in a post-9-11 world, in a post-9-11 lens, it puts a different light on this story, correct?

SPEAKER_14 41:55

Yes, it does. Yes, this is Samira. I don't remember exactly when I knew that the cockpit uh crew had left the airplane, but I do remember feeling very upset and very angry when I realized that almost as though they had deserted us. We had a conversation. Our later trainings were we had cockpit crew, we had pilots with us at certain parts of the training where we were then able to understand their role in such incidents and that their leaving the airplane was necessary to stop it from moving because if they had stayed on board, we could have been hopping all around the world.

SPEAKER_12 42:44

Or worse, yeah. They could have used the aircraft as a weapon that we unfortunately saw in 2001.

SPEAKER_14 42:53

Exactly. But but we had not been informed that in our training. So when when we when I knew that the cockpit crew had left, I felt angry and deserted because they're supposed to be the top of the chain of command on an airplane. So I think after this incident, that part was incorporated into our training programs, which helped later on.

SPEAKER_15 43:19

This is Mahvi. Just wanted to echo on Samira's thought processes. I felt exactly like Samira. I felt deserted, I felt like, how are we going to take this through? Only because we had only flown for six months, we were all of 21 years of age. And who's going to tell us what to do, what not to do? Uh, that initially was the first reaction, thought process, and mindset, till of course, you know, justification. And I agree. And I wish at that time, uh, even uh the rest FBI and everybody else would not wait for 9 11 to happen. I, in my world, I feel that the 73 was the pre. Curse uh I of course, including the Lockerbie, that uh there was uh thought process out there that could have created such major damage. And it was tested on 73, which was disabled, went through in Lockerbie, and we waited for 9-11 to happen. That just was my thought process attaching to Samiras.

SPEAKER_13 44:20

This is sunshine. I do remember though, in training, we were told in case of an incident, we should try and hide uh ID or try and get rid of our wings and jacket and anything that made us uh targeted as uh flight attendants. So I don't know if the pilot training was different or the same, but I would say that they would have probably uh have had to do the same thing. It's just I don't know if their training was different, and of course their training is different because it covers uh a lot that's different from what we do on a plane. But that's one thing I remember is to try and keep a low profile and get rid of anything that identifies you uh as a flight attendant, hide your IDs, get rid of the wings, take off your jacket, anything that denoted you as a flight attendant or representative of the AirL. Shareen, do you have any thoughts you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_16 45:26

Um, well, for me, I remember the training where the emergency training, we specifically had a hijack uh section or a portion of it about the uh about hijackings. And I recall um Pan Am training was very good, and uh they also had this phrase if escape is possible, take it, if release is possible, make it. So there that was also uh part of the Pan Am training. And uh when I found that the uh cockpit crew were had had gone and they were not, of course, dead, as I thought initially, I was actually happy that they had left the airplane and we were still on the ground and not uh somewhere up in the air.

SPEAKER_12 46:14

So, what happened next? Uh so Sunshine, you were the first person to enter the cockpit and found it empty with the hijacker.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 46:22

What what reactions did the hijacker uh what what was his reactions when you opened the door and there was nobody in there?

SPEAKER_13 46:29

Uh he was not, he was shocked, surprised. He didn't know what to do. He expected everything to be in place for his scenario, and then he'd carry on with his plans, but it didn't quite work out that way. So he came down to consult with uh uh his first hand guy, Ismail, and they were talking, and then he took me up again for the third time, and that's when he noticed uh the escape hatch was open, and he asked me what what it was, and he found it hilarious. Oh, so uh what were they men? And I said yes, and he said, and they ran away, and I said, Looks like it, and he said, and he started laughing, thinking uh, like, oh, you're a man and you ran away and he made me close. So, but he didn't seem to know what to do after that. He he was kind of lost till he regrouped and went on to bigger and better things.

SPEAKER_12 47:29

So everybody uh that was upstairs came downstairs.

SPEAKER_13 47:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_12 47:33

Walk us through what happened next.

SPEAKER_13 47:36

If I remember correctly, uh meanwhile, when I came back down, so there's gaps where I don't know what was happening downstairs because I was more mobile, and afterwards Shirin was very mobile with him. So there's gaps where she wouldn't know what was happening downstairs because we, you know, every time uh I came down, things had changed. People had been moved together. Uh they had been moved together initially, as soon as actually, as soon as we they came on board. Once uh people went down the right hand side of the aisle, I was on the left. I I moved to the right and then I went back to the left. So everyone had been moved back. They had brought the first class uh and business class, uh, made them get up and move backwards and kind of condensed everybody together from the back and the front into the center area. Uh, I went up to the cockpit again, this time after he figured out they were gone and stuff like that. Uh, all the passengers were brought down, and then later he brought some passengers up again. I don't know when, because I might have been in the cockpit or somewhere else. Uh when he came down, he wanted to make announcements or he wanted to make a call, make calls to his buddies. And I said, I don't know how to use the Interphone. Uh, we only use it for announcements, we're not allowed to use it as a phone. So it's only for announcements, and I put him on uh the headphone, uh, you know, the crew phone, the phones at every jump seat to make announcements to his buddies to chat with them because I was hoping someone would understand what he was saying. And if it's over the PA, well, then there was more uh, you know, there's more chance of knowing what was happening. So he was communicating with the guys at the back. There were two in front, two at the back, and he was communicating over the interphone. And this went on for a while till he wanted to meet with, he wanted to talk to someone on the ground, and that's when uh Viraf came into the picture. Uh he wanted the bus moved away, and he didn't know how to get in touch with uh people on the ground, and uh there were no radios, no nothing. Of course, I didn't know how to use anything, according to them. And uh we found a megaphone, so and Marianne had the megaphone, and he wanted to make announcements to uh he he said he spoke no English, first of all. He didn't understand English, and he would speak in broken English to me all the time and say, I want this to be announced. So I uh Marianne was in shock, she was in shock for quite a while. So um he'd tell me what he wanted. I would tell her what uh had to be said, and she would announce it over the PA, over the megaphone, and then uh she he wanted to communicate with the ground. So he got me to open the front the L1 and Marianne to stand next to me with the megaphone, and he stood behind the two of us and um asked, called out asking for someone to talk to. And um the the bus was uh the there uh what started off was the vehicle that they had come on board in was still parked there, and the stairways at L2 was still attached, and he wanted them moved away, so Marianne had to announce that. Uh I had to open the door, Marianne was next to me, he was behind us, he had the gun between both of us, she had to announce they had to move the stairway and the butt what he saw was someone moving the vehicle away, and um he started yelling because that was hopefully they get away with vehicle if they had to. Um, and he started yelling, uh getting Marianne to stop them. And Viraf was down at that point, and he says, We have to move it, there's a bomb in it, and they just kept rolling it away, and then he asked for someone to come and bring the stairways away from L2. So Viraf then said that I have to uh bring somebody to drive it away because it can't move on its own. So he allowed one person to come to L2 and drive the uh stairway uh staircase away, and then he closed the door. He kept uh asking Biraf, he said, uh, I want the capital, uh, I want someone to fly the plane. If someone is uh does not fly, all this was all these announcements were made by Marianne in the same format with him behind us. Um, if someone doesn't come on board to fly in 10 minutes, we'll uh shoot somebody, and it'll go on every 10 minutes. So uh Viraf said was also delaying him and saying they hurt themselves jumping off. They're not able to fly. We're trying to get somebody, don't worry, it'll take uh a little while, just be patient, just wait, just wait. And he kept uh so this went on for a good couple of hours with uh Viraf saying they're on their way, they're on their way, they're coming in from this country and they'll be here soon. And it was just delaying tactics, which went on for a few hours till Mustafa lost patience.

SPEAKER_12 53:42

For our listeners, Sunshine is referring to Viraf Daroga, who was Pan Am's country director for Pakistan. His interview will be in part two, the next episode.

SPEAKER_13 53:54

Okay, yeah. I didn't know his exact position. I knew him as the tall, thin guy with spectacles. That's all I knew him about because I was normally working the back, and he'd come into the front and he'd come say hi to everybody, but he never really um introduced himself as who he was. It was more like the tall, thin guy with specs, is who I knew him as. I later got to know him.

SPEAKER_12 54:21

The hijacker, when you were in the cockpit, got uh violent with you and hit you. Were after you came back down, were the hijackers violent with anyone else? How were they treating the passengers?

SPEAKER_13 54:35

No, he uh see the initially, which is something I forgot to mention, is uh he wasn't, I wouldn't say violent, he just kept knocking his gun against my head to show me he meant business, and it was more threatening than in a way it was violent, but not in a way where where you know it wasn't violent, violent, it was just they were super amped up, and it was he just needed to make it clear that he meant business. But um at one point of time he sent me up. This was before we went into the cockpit, where we went upstairs, and he uh when he saw the uh Mustafa came down, sent me up with Ismail to get these uh the passengers down. A lot of them were asleep, and there was this 14 or 16-year-old boy sitting, I think it was 9B, he was fast asleep. This guy kicked him so hard in the shin. It it was full force, like he was kicking a soccer ball into a go. It was so hard. This guy woke up screaming, and uh and I I said uh he said, What the hell? And he was it was it had to have been so painful. It was straight on the shin with these guys' boots, and uh he was crouching over in pain, and I just told him it's it's okay. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's okay, it's okay, just be quiet, be quiet. And that's when he got these guys, the passengers down from upstairs. So um he was that was very, very nasty and very wild, the way he treated that little boy. But Ismail was a real cockroach. I mean, he just was a nasty son of a bitch.

SPEAKER_12 56:38

Shereen, is there anything you want to talk about? Where were you in the aircraft when this was going on?

SPEAKER_16 56:45

So I was at the R4 door at the aft of the aircraft near the galley at the back. I was with two flight attendants uh that day, Mary Ann and Sissy here. And uh the flight attendant Mary Ann was called up front by the lead hijacker. He motioned with his gun for her to move up front early on in the morning, those a few minutes after the hijacking, after the takeover phase. That left us seated at the back there. We were all asked with an announcement to be seated. So we all uh uh sat down on the uh those of us who were in the aisles uh had to sit sit on the floor. And uh we stayed that way for some time. We were asked to lower the window shades. Uh it we stayed that way for uh we were not allowed to go to the toilets or do anything for the first four hours, at least until about 10 o'clock in the morning that day. At that time, um we uh they allowed people to start using the midlabs and the toilets. So I I walked up front towards the midlabs, asking to uh the lead hijacker if I could also use the washrooms. And uh he motioned me and the other flight attendant to follow him and go up to the business class galley. Uh once we got to the back galley, he said, start pouring drinks. So that's what we did. Um, in the galley where we in the business class clipper galley where we were pouring drinks, there were five flight attendants. There was flight attendant nature, the person, uh, myself, uh Rani and Marianne and Cecilia. So we poured drinks and we handed out sandwiches to um uh the cabin, into the cabin. There were many people on the aisles, uh on the floor in the aisles and in their seats. Um, and all the passengers had been brought into those two cabins between C and D zone. So it was really crowded in there. We bought the drinks and then handed them down into the aisles. Those who were standing at the uh end of C zone took the trays from us and handed it further back down the aisle. And so we managed to get the service done and uh make sure that everyone was fed and given a drink. After the service, I was going back to the economy section, and Mustafa, the lead hijacker, said, No, you're going to come up front and sit in business class. The entire section of business class and first class was empty except for the first four seats, the two rows uh on the left near the L1 door, where there were myself and three other flight attendants seated in the first two rows. The only passenger who was there was passenger Mike Sexton. He sat uh on the floor at uh the at the L1 door uh at the base of the jump seat, at the L1 jump seat. He was sitting there in silence, and um I really felt terrible for him because his was not an enviable position. While we were in the galley, uh Nirja had mentioned to me that one passenger had been shot, and the next passenger uh to be shot was seated um at the L1 door, so I knew it was him.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:12

This is sunshine. This point, after we had finished with speaking to the ground and stuff, uh Mustafa took me down the aisle and uh he uh he had got into a conversation with me about how he hated uh Israelis and Americans and stuff like that. So I got the I I I I knew then that those were his uh targets. And uh we started he started walking down the aisle and he kept asking people where are you from? And they'd say India. I mean, most of all, uh most of us were from India. Um some had American passports, some did not, but they were uh basically mainly uh Indian looking people. So he kept asking every three or every second row or first row, where are you from? India, India. And he uh at the point where people were on the floor, he stopped asking. And the first guy sitting down, who happened to be Kumar, he asked him, uh he said, You get up. So uh Kumar got up. He said, Uh, but I'm from India, I'm from India. He said, I don't care. And he dragged him up front and he put him at L1 in front of the door, and he um uh Kumar, he was a young kid. I mean, he must have been the same age as us, or maybe a little younger. He was so young. Um, and he kept uh, you know, this guy kept begging for his life, and uh Mustafa uh told him to shut up and turn the gun on him, and then uh he was crying and stuff like that, and he kicked him and he said, What are you? Are you a man? And he kept being really nasty with uh Kumar. And in the meanwhile, uh we he made Marianne, he made me open the door, and Marianne announced that um if we don't get somebody here, we're gonna shoot him. And um Viraf said, Oh, we will have somebody blah blah blah, prolonged it a little bit. But um after two or three times where they opened the door and closed the door, finally uh most of us seemed to lose it. He uh grabbed Kumar. He put Marianne right next to he made me sit down, he put Marianne in front of him, and Kumar in front of him put his arm around both of them and shot Kumar in the head, moved Mari-Ann aside, kicked Kumar out the door and flung the uh pistol on top of him, made Marianne close the door and told me to keep a lookout. So I saw Kumar go down, I saw him uh fall, I saw the gun fall, I saw a huge amount of dark blood come out around Kumar's head, and uh um and Marianne just was in total shock. I was in shock, and uh he kept me looking out till he moved Marianne somewhere else, and then he had me open the door every five minutes or so to check if the body was still there, and he'd hold me in front and he'd stand with his gun to my head, and I have to open it, beak, get back in. And after about I think it was maybe about half an hour later, uh, they took Kumar away. Uh after that, he made us go down again. He made me go down again. I think it was Samira's bag, uh lying in the first class or business class galley. I don't know, it was this bigish bag. There were two bags. I think one was Madhvi's, one was Samira's, and he he said, Take that bag. I said, It's not mine, I can't touch it. He just took it and he emptied it upside down. And I still remember when I was coming back to Samira, he was saying, Hey, that's my bag. Anyway, so he made me go down and he said, I want look for the, I want to get everyone's passports. So I'd already got the uh I already knew that he was uh looking for American and Israeli. So I went down the aisle and I was picking uh people had their passports out and whoever had it on them. Some of them had it in carry-on bags, some of them were just eager to please and were trying their best to look for it. So beyond a certain point, the angle they were at. He was at L1 and the other guy was at L2 with uh I think at that point it was Lillian. I'm not sure, no, maybe Niger. So after a certain point, um he followed me till where the passengers were sitting in the aisle, and then he told me to go over and climb over them. So I kept climbing and collecting passports, and I could see out of the sight of my um eyes that he was watching me. So I kept taking collecting passports, and as I was, I I'd try and take All three, four in the row so that if there was, I can't recognize American from British or European if they're white. I mean, so um I'd try and get all the passports together so that uh I'd hold my hand out and everyone would put their passports in my hand. And I'd knock as I was bringing it to the bag, I'd knock a few passports out which were not Indian passports and put in the bag. So I kept doing this all the way. And some people uh they'd when I reached them, they'd say, Oh, it's in the overhead bin, and I'd say, Don't worry about it, just shut up. Just shh. And I'd just carry on because I wanted as little, as few passports as I could, as few white people's passports as I could, and as you know, just to uh lower the risk of uh uh these people being exposed. So and I went all the way down, and I had to cross over and come up on the right hand side. And as I was coming up, he announced uh he got Marianne to announce sunshine come up front. And I was trying, but there's people all over the aisle. So I don't know if it was Samira or Madhvi who was at R3 and said, Hey, that's my bag. And I'm like, uh, and I just took the bag and went anyhow. So I was climbing over people, and uh some people on the other side were trying to give me passports, but I just ignored it and kept going till I reached the front, and uh uh we sat down. Meanwhile, he uh goes down the aisle and he brings another passenger up as hostage. And this guy actually, he uh as he was walking, he asked to go to the washroom. And uh Musipa said, uh, okay, come on up front, come on. So this guy comes up and he puts him down at L1. And this guy says, uh, the minute he sits down, he says, I'm an American. And I said, shut up. He doesn't want, he does not like the Americans. So this guy kept quiet and he started uh uh he was there begging and crying and stuff like that, and then he started praying in the Muslim way, and uh and uh so Mustafa comes to him and said, What are you doing? He says, I'm praying. And uh Mustafa says, To who are you praying? Uh this guy answers to God. And uh Mustafa said, Which God? And he said, There is only one God. And Mustafa smiled and sent him back. Uh then I had all the passports that I could gather with me at uh L1, and he said, Give me the American passport. So I pulled out the American passports and I kept looking and I kept showing him. I said, Look, they're all Indians, look at the picture, they're all Indians, they're American passports, but they're all Indians. So he says, Okay, give me the white. So uh when um that's when I found a few passports and I put it under my uh leg while I was sitting. First I pushed it up my skirt, and then I knew I'd be going up the stairs pretty soon. So I managed to get it out from under my skirt, put it under my left thigh, and uh when he walked forward to talk to Ismail, sorry, backward to talk to Ismail, I pulled up the seat, uh, the Velcro seat, which we knew were life cushions at a pinch, and I shoved them there, and then he came back and I was still looking and I had them all open. I said, these are all uh these are all Indian faces, they're all Indian. Um meanwhile, I found another one, and uh he was standing right next to me, and I found two more, and I passed it, and I and I couldn't do much more because he was right like right next to me. So I nudged Marianne, who was sitting in 10A, and I passed it to her, and I think there was a demo kit on the side next to her sitting leaning against the fuselage, and she pushed it into the demo kit. And uh after that, he asked for uh he went down the aisle again and he brought my text into the front. But prior to that, they had announced about radios and all kinds of things. They wanted communication with the ground because I didn't know how to use anything. I didn't know how to use the interphone, I could only use the intercom, I could only use the megaphone. So he went around looking for transistor radios. He he got two, and he wanted he got me fiddling to search for a news channel because he wants to hear all about his bravery, I presume. Uh, I couldn't get anything, and uh then he started asking uh Viraf for communication through uh he needed better communication than the megaphone and he needed someone to talk in Arabic. And uh finally, I don't have the timelines, but uh this was quite a few hours into it after Kumar had been shot, where um Viraf uh said that we had a mechanic on board and uh um he could help communicate to the ground uh over the uh cockpit radio. So uh Karas comes up front and then Karas and me uh were between the cockpit and down. So every time I came down, there was someone else. When Pumara was shot, Rani was there. I don't know when she came there. Uh I went back up again, came down again between uh Karas, me, and uh Mustafa were doing the march up and down. And there was Ismail sitting in the jump seat at uh in the upper deck, and he had a grenade with uh which he pulled the pin out from the grenade and he was lobbing it around and playing catch with it all through. Uh Mustafa Karasami were in the uh cockpit. Uh he was on the jump seat in the upper deck, and uh there were some passengers who had been brought back up. I don't know when, how, but the faces kept changing because, like I said, like some of us were mobile, so we couldn't see what was happening if we left a spot. And uh then I got to serve passengers in the upper deck, and I poured drinks, did all that. Meanwhile, Mustafa and me were smoking together because he wanted smokes, and he wanted my smokes, and because and he'd like so every time he had to smoke, he would light two cigarettes, and I would have to have one, and he'd have one. They were mine, and finally I pointed out to him that this is American Chesterfield. Why are you smoking American cigarettes? And he turned his gun on me. It's like, but anyhow, at towards uh through the day, he had raided the duty-free, he had opened Marlboro, he was drinking beer, he was doing all these kinds of things. Meanwhile, I was serving passengers on the upper deck, and I think the passengers they were getting pretty comfortable because when I went around with uh tray of cokes, one said, I don't want Coke, I want seven up. So uh that went on for a while, and uh towards the end, uh towards the end of my time, my mobile time, he he told me we had lots of conversations where he wanted to take me away to Cyprus and he wanted me to go wherever he went, and I was his friend and his buddy and all that stuff. And uh then he put me in first class to sleep, and I went, I was there for a while. And I had this little band-aid. We we always carried band-aids, the cockpit key, the can opener, uh, a flashlight on our person. So I had little notes on the band-aid, what time this happened, what time that happened. I've lost it and the names, but I didn't need to pull it out because there uh because I did not uh I their names and the accents were so different that and I was in going in and out of everything that I just had to make notes because it was after Kumar was shot, it was uh it was nerve-wracking. It was nerve-wracking to put on a good face and be smiley and blah blah and be chatty all the time when you know you see such a young boy being killed in front of you. And um I think after that, I think Shirin took over with Mustafa.

SPEAKER_14 1:16:11

Sure, this is Samira. So um when they finally allowed passengers to use the restrooms and get drinks, Madhvi and I were in the galley helping uh pour and pass out drinks. And um yes, it's interesting part of uh human perspective that similar to what Sunshine experienced upstairs, uh, you know, we're passing out whatever we could get our hands on, and we actually had passengers asking for an alternate drink rather than taking whatever we could pass out at that point. Um and I remember Madvi and I joking about it and saying, really? Uh, you know, we're just about managing to get you a drink. But, anyways, and then we were at the back of the airplane and there were two hijackers uh sitting on at the back of the airplane in either aisle. And I remember that as I was passing out drinks, one of them asked me to get him a beer. And then I walked back to the galley and I knew I wasn't supposed to serve them alcohol. So then I walked back to him with a sprite and I said, There's no beer, sprite you. And he just gave me a disgusted look, but took it anyways. So they had two hijackers positioned at the end uh of uh D-zone by each door, and um then we just settled down and really settled down once we heard that gunshot and we knew that they had shot someone, there was a hushed silence in the entire cabin.

SPEAKER_12 1:17:51

Uh Samira, what was going through your mind when you heard the gunshot?

SPEAKER_14 1:17:57

Well, to backtrack to feeling deserted by the cockpit crew and then now having uh someone shot on the airplane. Um it was like, what's going to happen? Are we ever going to get out of this? And then I remember since we were at the back of the plane, I remember Marsley and I looking at the doors at L3 and L4 because they were in manual. We were on ground. So the doors had all been put into manual and we were thinking about, oh, if we do get a chance to get out, we have to remember to arm them so that the slides inflate. Um, so we were kind of having these kind of conversations, trying to figure out what we could do. And that's again where the training kicks in, where you're looking at what you could possibly do when you have armed terrorists on board. But it was a long wait before anything else happened where we were. And I know that they were trying to contact the ground, and um, I think it was what 10, 15 hours later when at sunset, um, the APU finally uh the lights went off because we ran out of power.

SPEAKER_13 1:19:16

Uh, this is sunshine. Um there was uh one point when I remember seeing Samira Madwe at uh in the R3 area, was it the R3 area? Uh y'all were the R3 area, but y'all were nearer nearer to the galley, and there were a bunch of flight attendants right near the door, and I was coming up with the bag of passports, and I told them to pull the pin, pull the pin. You remember the emergency? You pull the pin, there's still a chance it'll inflate. And I was hoping to God someone would do that. But I don't know if uh nobody seemed to have got the chance. The other thing that was happening in the upper deck uh was Mustafa was uh he he got suspicious of all the sealed, you know. We had the sealed uh alcohol because we were landing for every customs, we had to seal them and crack them only after takeoff and stuff like that. He cracked the seal and uh he found the beer, and um whatever he drank, I had to take a sip first. It's a wonder I didn't walk around drunk and singing loudly because I had to take a sip of every can he opened, it was mostly beer, and then he uh hit on the scotch, I think. So um, and because when we uh basically we used the hard alcohol bottles, like the open cans of beer was tossed before we landed, but the half-empty bottles were uh cocked and put into the canister, and then we sealed it. So because they were half, he wanted to make sure they weren't poisoned, and I wasn't giving him stuff that was poisoned. So everything he drank, uh, I had to take a sip first.

SPEAKER_12 1:21:15

Madhvi, where were you and the aircraft and what was going through your mind?

SPEAKER_15 1:21:22

So initially, right when uh everything, when he started to push everybody back, I ended up in the aisle in business class. And um, I was seated in business class aisle. Um, I do remember seeing Kumar stand up, go. I was towards the middle back of the uh business class aisle. I do remember seeing Kumar stand up. I do remember seeing go, but I didn't see witness anything there, but I did hear the shots clearly. Uh when I want to say Rani was on my side trying to collect passports, and she couldn't come through because we were all jammed up together. Uh, there was no space for her to move. So she passed me the bag and told me to get clear wherever I could get some passports around the area. And just like Sunshine said, I clearly remember somebody saying, My passport is in the overhead bin. And I said, just let it be, give us what you have. I was collecting only what people were giving me rather than allowing them to go up to the or open the overhead bin. And then I passed the bag back to Rani. And by when I was doing this, I had moved closer to the R3 door. Uh when I gave the door, uh when I gave the back bag back to Rani, I was closer to the R3 door. Um, the door was, of course, in the uh disarmed position, and we used to keep our books, our manuals in the jump seat. So I opened the manual, took out the uh instructions how to open the door, uh, tore the page out of there. There was a passenger seated right across. And mind you, in R3, there were no um, there were no hijackers, they were in front and the back. And so we so there was the ability. I was not being strong, brave. It was just my timing that we all had to apply according to our time and ability. And so I had the ability to do that, pull that, give it to the passenger, and tell him that, you know, if he got a chance to go through all that before that, while we were seated, I remember the passenger next to me, that this lady who started crying and was breathing really uh hard, and she said she didn't fly Air India because Air India had a major emergency. She started to tell me stories about American airlines that got hijacked for 14 days, and she thought Pan American was the safest airline, and she came, she was going to the United States for heart surgery, and she was obviously visibly distressed. I remember communicating with her, talking to her, and I'm just giving you a little bit of what was happening passenger-wise, their reaction over there. Um, I remember her husband next to her, he was stoned. She was talking, but it was like she was talking through him. He was so stone dead. There was no remote emotion. I was 21. I didn't even know how to react to such a big thing of heart surgery and everything. And I was still, mind you, not in a fear mode at all. So I was very superbly positive almost to the end and after. So I just kept telling her that everything would be okay. I remember that. I remember by the R3 dose, the unaccompanied minors were there. And so trying to tell them everything would be okay, just stay down. I don't know if there were a row, whether all of them, because we had 13, 14 minors, I'm not sure. But I know that four of them were there, and I was able to speak to them. This was again just right by the before the jump seat. So going back to that passage where I gave the paper to look through and told him if he had the opportunity to please make sure, you know, he gets a chance to look through so he can open the door the way it's supposed to be. And eventually I believe that door was opened in the armed door or in the disarmed mode. Um, but I also believe that that passenger was the one that got shot in the eye because this is again connecting with pictures. We are talking about 1986, no social media, no transparency, no uh no flow through. And also, again, each one of us were dealing with the aftermath of the emotional distress in our own way, whether we were taking the highway of information or we were not. Times of India, which is the biggest newspaper in India at that time, whatever they were publishing was our way of learning and knowing. I do believe that that passenger that I gave that piece of paper, at least I felt at that time I connected that way, had got shot in his eye when he tried to open the door or put it in arm. I'm sure, I'm not sure. Uh then uh I was with um Samira, and um I remember the lady next to me telling me that she had peed in her seat and she needed to use the bathroom and she didn't know what to do. And I ended up asking the aft hijacker, please can I use the bathroom? And he did let me use the bathroom. And I said, there is another passenger behind me who would like to use the bathroom, and he allowed her to use the bathroom, and then that's how, not that's how that was the few of us that got started there. Then Samira and me helped take out the drinks while the people in the galley were pouring. And yes, of course, there were people that um that wanted choices of drinks, and uh we ended up serving the drinks and the sandwiches that were in the galley. We passed everything out, we did waters, and I don't believe there was any more food or drinks left, at least at that till that at that point, which we had finished. Uh, the passengers at that time when we were going were like a mix of relaxed, but I don't know what to do. And looking at us literally each, whether it was sunshine, whether it was Chirin or whether it was Samira or me, looking at us that what should we be doing next? And we're talking about 60-year-old people who are executives or CEOs or um big up, bigger phases in their life while we were here just six months into the role. But the at least some of us felt, and I think Samira and me felt like, you know, we we had to give them our energy, we had to give them that backing. And I think what we could do was create that aura in that little area that we covered of making them feel that we've got this, we've got this, everything is going to be okay. Whether we were laughing or whether we're saying, seriously, you want a choice of drink, take this one because we don't know when we get a chance to serve the next one. And they were okay with that. And just trying to not lighten the situation, but just trying to give that impression that okay, we got this, we are doing it, we've got your back, we've been trained. enough without saying all these many words, of course. And I I do believe that the few of us that were right there, I know that between me and Samira because we spent most of the day time and uh when we evacuated together at the same time, that our primary goal at that time, we took that to become our primary goal, to be like the support team, to be like there for the passengers that would not turn up to be heroes, would not turn up to be uh somebody that I can take charge or get the impression that these are young flight attendants and look at them. They they don't look barely we were 21, but we may have looked 17 and 18 years old because that's just the way we were not to give them that impression that hey, you know, they don't know what they're doing in you know our lives are at stake and let's go out there, let any passenger thinking like this, let's go out there and let's take control of the situation. I feel those of us that were there that were doing what we could do outside of Mustafa and Ismail's or anybody else's uh area, we did the best we could in trying to keep that peace and calm and sustained because clearly nothing happens with one person. No crew, no one crew member can serve the whole 747. And um and I think all of us played our little role and did what we did. So that was my role up to the point of course to the end we'll talk when you are ready for it.

SPEAKER_13 1:29:19

Thank you Shereen um I have just one thing to add I'm not uh um I got a letter from this guy called Richard Melhart and oh I know him he was uh actually an R3 and he was a Vietnam War uh vet and he wrote a letter to me after the incident just thanking me for whatever and uh he had said that he was the one he had opened the R3 door he had to uh kind of leap over a bunch of flight attendants and get the door open so that's what I heard from him but like this is like I said I I wasn't there and um uh that's what I had heard and when I met him in Washington too that came up when we went for the uh criminal trial for most of I met him there and uh we got chatting and so just throwing it out there I wasn't there I don't know who did what when where I wasn't but this is just what I heard.

SPEAKER_15 1:30:35

Yes so to add to that that's why I said the passenger got shot so of course the you know I don't know if the passenger who got shot who I gave the paperwork to the the R3 door information I know Mr. Melhart uh I'm in contact with him and he may have been the one that opened eventually but I was just trying to portray the the scenario of the fact that that's what the passengers did and maybe he took this this passenger may not have sat with the paper in his hand he may have passed it around and I did I did tell them and I actually put it in the Clipper magazine when I gave it I didn't give it like the piece of paper I put it in the magazine and I told them that hey take this pass it around who can get to the door first that is the way we open the door here. So yes it could have been and uh and that that could have totally been the scenario and this person must have tried first and got got shot in the eye because I know clearly I remember seeing and feeling and you know coming back to saying oh my God you know he got shot because of me.

SPEAKER_14 1:31:40

That was the right then of course so yeah it's awesome yes this is a mira so since we're talking about that time um I don't know Tom if you're ready to go there but like Marhui said at that point when they started shooting um we had the unaccompanied miners with us and to protect them we tried to put them between the toilets at L3 and R3. There were uh two sets of toilets so we tried to get the all the unaccompanied minors in between those toilets so that they would be safe and that's why we were not by the door because we're trying to get the unaccompanied minors out of the shooting range. And then whoever opened the L3 door opened it in manual and I know that a flight attendant opened the L4 door and therefore they put it the R4 I'm sorry R3 and R4 opened. And so a flight attendant opened the R4 door and therefore put it in armed and so we had a slight inflate at R4 but R3 everyone started jumping onto the wing and then from the wing of the 747 down to the ground which is what about 18 feet um and it was dark outside we didn't know what was outside uh but we knew that we were being fired upon from four ends and so we had to get out.

SPEAKER_12 1:33:15

Sharene?

SPEAKER_16 1:33:16

Yes so I'm going to backtrack a bit and go back to um the morning where we just finished pouring uh drinks at the uh business class galley and handing it out into the cabin one thing that struck me at that time was that the passengers were really calm they were quiet and they did as they were told no one was acting out or causing any confusion that was really good because I think if there were some people who had reacted badly perhaps things could have ended worse. But after pouring out the drinks and handing out the sandwiches in the business class galley I was asked to go and sit up front in business class with three other flight attendants. The three other flight attendants and myself we sat there in at the forward section of business class with the next passenger who had been selected to be shot he was seated down by the L1 jump seat on the floor by the L1 door and the person who was monitoring us he was seated the hijacker was seated on the aft most seat of uh first class with his gun trained at us on row five so he was he had his gun trained on the four of us and Mike Sexton. So at this point what had happened was there were it it was quite quiet. If it was Ismail who was seated there we would be allowed to uh make conversation sorry if it was Mustafa who was there we were allowed to converse but if it was Ismail he would say no talking anyway we sat like that and suddenly the uh smoke alarm went off and it was really loud oh yeah and at this point what happened was Mustafa got really upset he picked up his uh gun stood up and pointed it at us and said what's happening what's happening so I I stood up I said don't worry be calm the smoke alarm has gone off in the in the first in the business class lab I can go and check so he came with me he put his uh gun to my side and uh I knocked on the door and tried to get the door to open since it didn't open I did what flight attendants can do and we do very rarely we oh uh I opened the door in the manual mode and forcibly open the door and pulled the door open. When I pulled it open I saw that the I saw there was another hijacker who was seated in the toilet and um he he immediately put his uh handgun up and held it to my forehead. So at this point I had one for one gun at my forehead and one gun from Mustafa based on uh pointing into my side. So um at that point I just said very calmly you're smoking and you've set off the smoke alarm, stop smoking and uh so he he for a moment he hesitated for the longest moment at least to me it seemed like the longest moment ever. And then he slowly lowered uh the gun and I took a step in and tried to disengage the smoke alarm which was on the ceiling. Once this beeping had stopped I slowly took a step back and the minute I took a step back and away from the door he slammed the door shut then I was allowed to go back and be seated again in the first two rows. So this was a pretty scary experience for me having a gun face uh at my forehead and at my side and I was thinking as Sunshine said earlier you know you try to use certain uh humorous um sort of phrases in your mind or you try to think of the situation as somewhat comical and I was thinking wow it could have gone the other way they could have I could have been shot for trying to enforce smoking rules on the airplane and um and my parent my family would have received me in a body bag because I was I I embarrassed a terrorist on the toilet while he was seated there. Anyway that incident was over and then soon after that Mustafa came down with uh sunshine from the upper deck and he asked her to sit in seat 4B which was in first class the second last row in first class and uh he pointed to me and with his gun and he said you're coming upstairs with me. So I went up the staircase to the upper deck and the cockpit area and that's where I remained for the afternoon and the rest of the day. When we got upstairs I looked into business class and I noticed that Karas was seated in the first row on the right hand side in 7J and he sat down on the little ledge next to me. After that every time there was communication from inside the cockpit we would move inside the cockpit to make contact with the ground staff every time and the tower every time we moved in Karas would go in first I would follow when I was standing when I would go next Mustafa would stand behind me with his arm around my neck and shoulders in a neck brace from behind and the gun would either be at my side or at my head. He carried a semi-automatic weapon and I was told that that automatic weapon could fire as many as 600 shots in one round. Anyway we walked into the cockpit each time there was a there was communications from the tower and he did this using using me as a shield in front of him and I guessed that it was he was trying to make sure that snipers from the outside couldn't shoot him and if there were shots fired it would be me that got hit. When we walked into the cockpit Kras would always sit on the right hand side in the first officer's seat and I would sit in the captain's seat on the left hand side. Mustafa would sit in the chair behind the captain's seat that is behind me. And of course again that meant he could not snipers from outside could not get a direct shot at him he's uh we sat that way every time uh there was a there was communication from the tower I would hand the hot mic to Mustafa he would put his hand over mine and speak uh to the uh tower he spoke in a language I didn't understand and I guess it was our Arabic. This happened a few times and then when we exited the cockpit he always exited in the same way with with me in the front and he would back out of the cockpit so that he didn't was not in any uh direct line of fire from the snipers so he also um when we went outside he would uh be seated he would raise the window at the side of 6A and he would say look out what do you see and I was I was like I don't see anything what are you looking for and he said well I'm looking for American fighter jets and um so he would uh put his uh hold my head to the window and look along with me and just to check and make sure when we were in the cockpit as well he would do the same thing he would put ask me to look from the windshield uh of the cockpit down at the tarmac and said do you see anybody is there anyone there and uh sometimes he would put his face alongside mine and take a look down at the tarmac and I always said there was no one there and there wasn't and he would ask Haraz on his side to have a look as well there were times when we sat in the cabin and he just made conversation uh I tried to get him to be calm converse about uh things that were just normal conversation we had been taught in the Pan Am training to specifically watch out for Stockholm syndrome which is what I was doing. Stockholm syndrome of course is where you um where the hostage takes on the hijackers cause as their own uh I was watching to see that I did not in any way was I not in any way sympathetic to him he talked a lot about all kinds of things he asked to go dancing in in Bombay he asked me what's the best nightclub there so I said at the time it was something it was a place called Studio 29 so he insisted he wanted to uh go dancing at Studio 29 he also said come to Cyprus and um I'll take good care of you and I was oh no not really I don't really want to go to Cyprus and so this was this kind of uh conversation was going on he also said he was fighting for his home that he wanted to make sure that he went to Cyprus to meet his friend and and go ahead with his course. There were times that he was angry but for the most part of the afternoon and the evening he was uh quite calm. So for the first few times we went into the cockpit he used a little bit of force and he was a bit rough but uh once he saw that I wasn't resisting and I was just calm and my body was relaxed I mean he didn't use any unnecessary um uh pressure or force while sitting there I didn't really believe any of the things that he was saying about himself and his personal life he also I noticed wore a white belt around his waist um he had he was without a shirt and it was very visible so I said what is that I guessed it was an explosive device and he said uh and I didn't want to ask him is it an explosive device so I just said what is it and he said oh this has been given to me my by my mother to prevent me from being in any pain so I remember that time again using humor to think wow if this is a an explosive device I'm surely not going home today because I'm sitting so very close within a couple of feet from this person and later found out of course that there were enough there was enough explosive that was enough to uh blow up the entire airplane um I just want to add one thing to uh the point where after he shot Kumar uh he was so angry it was uh it wasn't fun to see he kept walking up and down up and down fuck them fuck them they made me do it they made me do it and he was so so angry that uh uh it was very hard to like I I knew to shut my mouth and sit till he was ready to talk to me again because he was in an in a total overreactive state and um he was furious absolutely furious and uh the same thing he did with Shirin he every time he heard uh noises outside I had to look and good thing I like planes because I could identify there's a PIA going there's British airways there's this going there that going because he was looking for something I didn't ask him for what he was looking for like you did Shirian but I uh um I don't know what he was I didn't know what he was looking for but if anyone had to do uh the look out the window it was someone else besides him it was always someone else besides him he was the biggest coward of them all honestly so after 16 hours of being on this aircraft do we want to talk about what happened after the ATU went out the emergency lights came on and um we went into the um cockpit together as usual Karas went first and uh Mustafa and I followed later uh after closely behind him and um Karas explained very clearly to Mustafa he said the APU uh at the rear of the airplane uh is down once the batteries are down there will not be any power to this airplane you will not be able to take off again and um there will be the airplane will be in complete darkness soon you have 15 to 30 minutes um before the lights fail completely so uh most of us said try and restore the lights so Karas went to the flight engineer's table and he tried pushing buttons there on the top at the on the left hand side and he tried different things and he said I don't seem to be able to do anything and um and then Mustafa was that was the only time when he didn't use me as a human shield because what had happened was when the emergency lights came on there were no proper lights in the cockpit except for one very large circular light above um the first officer's seat on the right hand side. So he made me hold the paper up to the ceiling to cover the lights so that there was not enough light to illuminate the cabin clearly. He did this because again I felt he didn't want snipers outside to be able to get a clear shot of him and see what was happening inside the cockpit at that point in time. Karas continued to try to restore the lights later I was told um that the snipers did take two shots at the windscreen of the cockpit I however did not hear or see anything and um we then when Karas said I cannot restore the lights he led us down into the main deck. Just before we exited he had asked Ismail to take the upper deck passengers down and they had gone ahead of us so uh when um Mustafa said let's go there was nobody in the upper deck we made our way down the stairwell uh I noticed all the passengers were there even though the cabin was really dimly lit it was hot and very quite quiet. In a few moments he asked me to uh come forward and make an announcement using the megaphone. So I stood up from where I was seated moved past Karas picked up the megaphone made the announcement and I said um that uh I said exactly what he told me to say he said tell the passengers that um we are trying to restore the lights we are asking the manager outside if he can restore the lights for us and um I made the announcement told everybody they were not to move they were to be quiet they were to be seated in their places and then I gave put the megaphone away and I was going to sit down again as the second person on the floor in that aisle and he said no you sit in front of Karas so I was the first person on the floor in the aisle and uh Karas was behind me. When I looked behind I saw there was a passenger behind Karas and behind Karas was Mirja the purser um at this point the airplane was dark it was um there was a lady seated in the uh aisle of uh row of seats next to me and she said in Urdu or in Hindi they are going to kill us now aren't they? They're going to murder us and I just reached in across the aisle and I patted her arm and I said no no we're going to be okay you know I was calming her down. Little did I realize just how disastrously uh things would uh move in the wrong direction over in the next couple of minutes. So um at that point there were four uh hijackers two at the Forward section facing the cabin forward into C zone, and two were at the aft section facing uh forward from D face facing the nose of the plane, they were standing in um the rear section next to at the back of D zone. Um before the firing started, uh, anybody else wants to say something?

SPEAKER_14 1:50:24

Yes, this is Samira. So just before what you narrated, Mustafa had come to the back of the airplane and he had taken off his shirt at this point. And uh Madhvi and I nicknamed him Rambo because he was walking around with this rifle slung on his shoulder and that ammunition belt was showing and he'd taken off his shirt and he was walking up and down the cabin. And I think what he was doing is coming to the back to communicate to the two hijackers at the back to be ready for the next phase. And um, then when the lights went off, they pushed us all. Like we were all seated in seats at that point, but then they got everybody into the aisles and squished between C and D zones again. And that's when we took the unaccompanied minors and we tried to squish them between the labs in between.

SPEAKER_16 1:51:22

So by the time I got there, obviously, then everybody was already already told them to uh the other hijackers to get everybody seated on the floor and in the aisles within a smaller, uh more compact area.

SPEAKER_14 1:51:37

Exactly.

SPEAKER_15 1:51:38

Yeah, yeah. So I'm just gonna back up on Samira right away because our experiences are pretty similar uh since we were together at the same time. Uh yeah, when he started to push everybody, it almost felt like compressing everybody into one body out of 100 bodies, and we were all literally stuck to each other. We put the um the unaccompanied minors, there were people around that were crying because they knew everybody got the sense. Everybody at that point had the sense that this was nearing to the end or the end literally. So um we were sitting over there, passengers were crying, uh, flight attendants, other flight attendants that were around us, Samira and me were in the trees uh by the three doors on the on the left side in the left side, right, Samira? On the left, yeah, on the L3 doors. Um and we were in the in the aisles while the kids were all squished up between the labs. But passengers, just to tell you about how they were going at that feeling at that time, they were super anxious, crying. Literally, you could hear prayers, you could hear people like saying things, mumbling, jumbling. There was a lady sitting in front of me who said, I have three kids, I can only shield two. Please, somebody can help. In literally, you know, both Sabira and we were sitting there. We took the child's eye. I remember definitely putting my leg or hand on top of that child and you know, just getting into a feet position as much as we could, because we literally had two inches of space for each of us to be squished over there. And um and that was literally all that, and then of course, we heard the prayers going through the cabin before the doors got opened by somebody who was closer to the door. We were close to the door, but not close enough because even though we were like maybe one foot away from the door, but there were like 15 people between in that one foot uh space, we were just crap, like not even, I don't even know. Sardines also doesn't seem like a perfect uh uh description. But uh yeah, so that was what was happening in the L3 doors between you know the other flight attendants getting uh um nervous and crying in listening to everybody's cries. It it was definitely one of those scenes that stuck to my memory because it was the closest that we all knew. We were, we didn't know how many of us would get out of there. And then, of course, we'll go to the next part whenever. So go, Sunshine. Thank you for letting me speak.

SPEAKER_13 1:54:18

Um, I was still in first class at this point, and uh before well, Ismail woke me up, he hated me, so he knocked the gun hard against my head and uh told me to get up, and he kept pushing me with his gun to walk down the aisle, so I kept going and he kept pushing me, and then he made me sit right in the front. I was like right there, and I saw Nirja um there was one person, and then there was Nirja behind me, and um uh well then Mustafa came down and he saw me. This was before Shirin and Karas came down. He came down for I don't know why, he came down and um he saw me sitting there and he told me to get up and go behind. So I climbed over the first person and he said, No, more behind. So I went past Nizha and he he said, No, more. And uh and then at that point, maybe after two or three people behind Nirja, he said, okay, sit. So I sat there and I was facing the front, and then he disappeared. Ismail was in front there, and then I saw uh him come back down, someone come back down because it was pretty dim by then, with uh Shirin and Karas. And we were all uh like Matvi and Samira and everyone said at this point, we were squished together, like you couldn't even bend your head. Like whichever position we were in, that's where we were. We couldn't move, you couldn't move a finger, you couldn't move an arm, you couldn't move a thing. We were just stuck together like glue. And uh then they came down and um after the announcements and everything, the emergency lights started flickering and they took up position and then went, then then they just shot. Uh passengers were on my side, on the left side, they were silent, pretty much silent. Everyone was frozen, everyone was scared. There was uh while we were sitting there, one child asked for water. I reached in and got her water, but those things squeaked so loudly I couldn't get her anymore. And uh, we were just there. We the we we just couldn't do much. The people were you couldn't move, you just could not move.

SPEAKER_12 1:57:11

So the hijackers started firing into the cabin.

SPEAKER_16 1:57:16

Yeah, they set themselves up two at the front of C zone and two at the aft of the airplane, with all the passengers in between them in the seats and in the aisles on the floor, and then they let out a war cry, what Saar like a loud war cry, and then they just started firing. And I was um seated, uh, the first person in the aisle in front of the um hijacker was uh Ismail. And uh when I looked up from where I was seated on the ground, a couple a few feet away from him, I saw his gun being fired. I saw streaks of light and fire uh spraying forth from his gun. And he started from the back of the cabin, uh moving his um uh semi-automatic weapon from left to right and uh left to right again. And by the time he reached forward, I had moved out of the aisle between two rows of seats. The lady who had um said, Well, they're going to kill us now, she just grabbed onto my head and pulled me down and kept me down right at the bottom there. And uh I pulled my legs in out of the aisle and uh stayed there. The the the um firing seemed to go on for what seemed like a really long time, and but it was probably no more than maybe a minute or so.

SPEAKER_12 1:58:48

And and Shireen, you saw the mechanic uh Karas uh killed, correct?

SPEAKER_16 1:58:55

That is correct. He uh stood, he when I when the firing stopped, um I got up very slowly and I looked around. There was there it was terrible at that time because from silence there was now um screams of pain and cries of agony through the cabin. People were saying, Where is my loved one? They were calling out their names and there were cries of pain throughout. And um, I when I stood up when I uh a minute later, I looked down and I saw um that uh my co-worker um had been shot, and I knew just by looking at him that he was no more.

SPEAKER_12 1:59:38

And Sunshine, you you saw Nirdra shot, correct?

SPEAKER_13 1:59:42

I didn't see her shot. I I came back in after the fact and I found her there. But when the shooting, uh just before the shooting started, and when they yelled, whatever they yelled, to me it sounded like kill because that's what I imagined they were gonna be saying. And when they started shooting into the crowd, the passengers, it was like howling, it was awful. It was like a bunch of dogs howling. It was the worst sound, and then uh I looked up and I saw uh flashes of light on the left and the right side, and uh, unfortunately for the person in front of me, she got shot in the head and she fell backwards on top of me. So uh, and then uh in a little bit there was space because someone had opened the door on the other side and people had started running. Um the lady in front of me had gotten uh shot in the back of her head, so I had a whole bunch of uh uh matter all over my chest and uh blood and brains, and it was it was off. It was off the screaming, the yelling, trying to get people to it. I didn't do anything at that point because people were moving, so you can't control a mob. I let them go wherever they were going, and I just waited to see what I could do after.

SPEAKER_12 2:01:20

And uh Maudi. Yes. What what happened from your perspective?

SPEAKER_15 2:01:27

So we were by the L3 door, and once the when they finished what they were saying, communicating with each other, the hijackers, they started the firing. I did not put my head up at the point where I saw the gun flashes, but when I put my head up, all I could see is the fluff from the seat just going like snow. Uh, and um, it seemed like there were stones flying, there were just bullets ricoching from the fuselage, uh, people were screaming, yelling. I I literally could see where I was in my little area, people were trying to stand, and of course, that was the worst thing to do. I did not see anybody dead or dying in in the area we were. Um, and I think what what got us lucky for us was the door got opened immediately because you were sitting so close to the door. Uh, but again, to back what um Shereen and Sunshine said, the moaning, the groaning, the agony, that was so piercing. That was simply so piercing, it could tear your heart apart. And then if there's anything else there to tear it, would tear that even further more. It just felt like it was shredding your insights. Uh, and for us, it was only a brief moment. I'm assuming for Shireen and Sunshine and other flight attendants who were there longer, their witness was so much more longer of that pain and agony. But that one second dose of that that experience and that uh witness was enough to crunch your whole mind and brains out of shape. So that that that part of that was the only one time that I was afraid in the hijacking. And uh that was one part that stuck with me forever, has stuck with me forever. And I think that pain and agony was simply simply too much. So till that airplane door was opened, um, and even before I could react, before I could do anything, I was simply pushed out into the um onto the wings by the passengers who were trying to exit. At this point, everybody was just exiting, screaming, yelling. Uh at a latter date, I did meet a passenger who said, Oh, I was next to you when um when the evacuation began at the three doors. And now I I was married at that time and now I'm divorced. And I asked her, What happened? And she said, you know, when those doors opened, my husband ran out and I called out to him. He made eye contact with me. I asked him to help me. We were married 18 years and he still ran out without me. She said, I saw his eyes the last thing before I jumped out of the airplane. And that so just to tell you how things that uh this was one story I got to know because of we we continue to fly. And uh so we were just thrown out of, I was thrown out onto the wing. And again, no choice again at that point because everybody was just pushing. If you did not jump on your own, you would be pushed. When you jump on your own, I'm thinking uh now that I've learned what I did, is at least you have control in when you land, even though you don't know where you're landing because it's pitch dark, black tarmac late night. You don't know when to pull yourself back to hold for the impact of landing on the ground. I jumped off the airplane, broke my leg and my back, and um I had um partial um um I forget the name, spinal injury and broke my ankle. And then after that, we were like ants scattering, just running on the tarmac and didn't know where to go. There was nobody to give us any guidance of where to go, what to do. I remember initially running, and Samira and me got separated, uh uh initially running and hiding in one of those uh luggage compartments that you have, which you use the uh to store luggage in the airplane. I ran in, pulled the curtain, but then again, you know, I could hear the noises, voices, people running, calling. I thought, what if nobody knows that I'm here? So I came out, started running with everybody in, nobody knew which direction to run. So I just followed one group of people that uh went towards a little, it looked like a house or a tower or part of a control room. So we ran into the control room and and it had the lights on, and there there were security guards with guns standing there. And they told us, get in there, get in there, and then they ran away from there and they left us or they went away from there. I don't know whether they went to help or what they went to do, I don't know. But they left us a few passengers there, pushed us in, and we were left in that room, and the few of us that were there, we locked ourselves in a bathroom, which was like like a horrible little tiny bathroom. There were nine or ten of us, I don't know how many. And then um we were there for a few seconds, and then when the guards came back to bang, I remember clearly the men, instead of opening or doing anything, I remember them pulling me, putting me in the front. So they put me in the front and they said, You open the door because they were afraid that you know it's the hijackers who have come and are trying to still get us. We had to get so it was really the guards that came in, they let us out, they told us to climb a five feet wall, jump over the wall, get into the main building where the rest of the passengers were. So we had to get to the rest of the building. While we were running, one ambulance hurt somebody. I don't know how that train of events happened, but I think they pushed this person down or banged into the person because they were running. Uh the ambulance was coming through. We were running and we were still fearfully running and we ended up in the main building. So, and then then after that, we went to the hospital. But uh yeah, so that that that's still where my story was.

SPEAKER_12 2:07:37

Samira, uh do you want to tell us what happened from your perspective?

SPEAKER_14 2:07:43

So when they started shooting, I remember being between the labs with the two accompanied unaccompanied minors. And when I remember the dimly lit cabin, I remember smoke, fumes, screams, and I remember myself screaming, open the door, open the door, open the door, and then somebody opened the door, and there was just an exit. Everyone was jumping, moving towards the door, uh, jumping out. And I remember jumping onto the wing with one of the kids and looking across because there was the ground below, and I'm looking across at the R4 door where the slide had inflated, thinking, oh, should I try and jump over to the R4 slide and slide down? Because would that be feasible? And then I saw the hijacker who was at the R4 door in that corner. He went down the slide, and that just totally freaked me out. So now the hijackers are escaping the airplane, and here's all of us escaping the airplane, um, not knowing which direction to run in. It's dark outside. Um, there's flashing lights from some cars, and we started following whoever was ahead of us. Um I remember getting into the airport terminal, um, and there were rows of those plastic bucket seats. And just as we entered, the lights went off, the power went off in the terminal. And so I remember going, all of us were under the seats because we didn't know what was happening. I'd just seen one of the hijackers getting off the airplane. I remember all of us were under the seats and the lights went off. When the lights finally came on, they had got that hijacker, and they were walking him through the terminal with his hands tied behind his back with a rope. Yeah, I remember and that was I don't know what to think. It was like really, but yeah, it was scary, and then we got to the hospital, we were taken to the hospital, and we stayed the night in the hospital for observation.

SPEAKER_16 2:10:15

Um well, after uh the firing had stopped, um as everybody else just said, um, there was total pandemonium and panic and mayhem. Everybody was um trying to um get off the airplane. I looked and uh for Nircha, but I didn't see she was nowhere to be seen where she had been seated earlier. And um, so I looked towards the Clipper Gabby because I was right next to it, but I definitely didn't want to go there because I know that uh after um firing their weapons, um the two hijackers must be there. So I turned around and looked towards the aft of the airplane. I saw from um the night sky outside, I realized that the R3 uh door was open, so that's where I walked towards. So I was walking towards that aisle, uh towards that door, and um I could feel that there were dead people in the aisles, and uh I could feel the blood against my feet. It was really horrific and um beyond description. Um, so once I reached that particular door, uh R3, which I realized there was no slide, it had just been opened uh and there were people on the wing. I jumped down. It's quite a drop from the door sill to the wing. And so I went halfway down the wing and I saw that there were people seated on the wing of the aircraft. Among those people, I saw Sunshine, Flight Attendant Dilip, and Rani. So I looked towards the aft of the Airplane and I saw that the R4 slide, as Samira said, had been inflated, and uh so I thought that this is too high a jump for people to uh make from the wing without getting injured. So I decided to redirect the passengers down the inflated slide from the door next door, the door R4. Um I ran back, I jumped up onto the door sill, and I um while I was running, I shouted again. This is where the Pan Am training just kicked in. I shouted, leave everything, come this way, leave everything, come this way. And then I jumped up and uh all the passengers followed, and um I could see uh sunshine and the at the back there, and uh people I was trying to pull people up and into the aircraft and direct them down to the next slide. Uh while I was pulling people up and in, uh somebody handed me their bags and I said, Leave your bags, and sunshine from the back was shouting, leave your bag, because people were trying to give us their luggage and then as though it was not a normal boarding process, you know, it was really terrible. Um, so, anyways, uh Sunsha and Philip and Rani were trying to hold the passengers back from crowding in back into the airplane to go down the aisle, down the other door. And um, at that moment it was also terrible because I could feel that some people who I was pulling into the aircraft were really badly injured, but I really felt we didn't have any time. We had to get them off the airplane as soon as possible because to in my mind I was clear that they were the hijackers were still on board and they could open fire again. And the most scary part was that my back was towards the inside of the airplane, and if they came, I would be the first one to be shot, and I would be the last one to see not to see them. Everybody on the wing could probably look in and see them, but I wouldn't. But anyway, I continued to pull them up and in, and um yeah, the flight attendants continued to hold them back. And um what happened was we again what we were taught in training was to say to a helper, to identify a helper, an able-bodied helper, and say, You stay here, help me. So, what I did was I identified a nice uh young guy who I thought would be the perfect helper who could stand there and help me pull people up and in. And I said to him, You stay here, help me. And he just took a look at me and then he ran off down the aisle to the other side and down the slide. I was so uh shocked, I didn't know what to do for a minute. I didn't want to ask anybody else because I had felt uh so disappointed by this person's reaction. So I just continued to stand there, pull people up and into the aircraft and then down the aisle. Um, there were little children, I actually remember throwing them onto the seats over there as well when they were handed to me. And finally we got everybody into the airplane, and um then uh the four of us started to look for uh people who were left behind, who needed help, who uh needed to exit the airplane from R4, who was still in the cabin. And um that's when I saw um Nirja being helped by Sunshine and Dilip towards the R4 door. We went there and they were we shouted to uh one of the other flight attendants uh to that Nirja was coming down the slide.

SPEAKER_13 2:15:53

After the shooting and everybody running, people went on to the R3 and um I followed them and I went out on the wing and I stood back because a lot of people were jumping. There was no way uh we could get all of them back in. I didn't know what we were facing inside. There were enough grenades and smoke bombs that had been thrown, and I don't know what else was waiting, but I felt safer because uh I think I was out on the wing before Sharin got there. So I saw two hijackers jumping off the uh onto the slide. So I knew two were gone, and um I I don't think I didn't think the others were gonna wait behind because right from the get-go, uh initially Mustafa had told me he had C4 around his waist and he could um he was he would blow up everyone if he didn't get his wick. And if he intended, like he should have blown everyone up if he really meant business, but they were such a bunch of cowards. If uh that's what they really intended to do to martyr themselves, they would have blown themselves up, right? We'd or we wouldn't be here telling the story. Um so I was on the wing, people were jumping off, whoever was jumping, I was letting them jump. There was one guy, Samira, just to let you know, who made it. He jumped from the wing to the slide and he shot down like a bullet. Uh, other people tried, unfortunately, they weren't so fortunate. Some of them falling on their heads and not moving. It was terrible. I had the way some human behavior is it disillusions you for life. Other people were jumping on top of them to get a soft landing. There were people with passenger bags, people were tripping over the bags and falling down. I was playing tug of war with the bags and the passengers. And uh Dilip was getting ready to jump. I uh and he didn't know what was happening because he was kind of getting pushed off the plane because people were just mobbing the plane, and you're not geared to jump, but you were just being pushed off. So I grabbed Dilip and we stood aside, let everyone jump, whoever they want, whoever wants to jump. And uh it reached a point where uh people were too old, and then they were uh pulling at my jacket. Please, please, please help us, help us. So uh we went back towards the plane, and I stood at the bottom and I was pushing people up by their bums because it was like maybe a two-foot shirin, would you say two-foot uh climb? And a lot of them that were left behind were really old. So I think Shirin were inside, and uh I didn't see Rani on the wing at all. I saw her afterwards when we were inside. Uh, it was so crowded, and uh I uh was pushing people up. Shirin heard me abuse a few passengers because they wouldn't leave their bags behind, and I was threatening them with a fist in front of their face, like leave it. And uh this continued till the wing was empty, and then we uh we got in, and Dilip was still with me. I didn't see Shirin at that point, and I saw Nisha get popped up, and uh she was staggering and walking down the left side of the aisle and uh holding her arm and her stomach, and she was staggering. So I told Dilip, I see Nija, let's go, let's go. We uh we ran up towards her, and then I couldn't find her because she had collapsed and it was really dark now. The APU, everything, the emergency lights, everything was gone. And uh we carried her. I think uh I took the arms and uh Philip took the legs and we carried her to R4 and pushed her down. Uh while I was on the wing looking around, I saw uh a lot of uh guards sitting around uh running around and doing all kinds of things. But basically, they all they had were sticks, bamboo sticks. And uh that's what they came to help us out with. Um after we threw uh uh Nisha down the uh raft, that was the last I saw her live. Uh I um Philip went next, I think, and then I took uh running jump off the plane, and this is a funny. So well, men in Karachi uh apparently do not catch um other women. So um I come shooting down the slide because I took a running jump and our skirts were satin lined. So as I'm shooting down, my skirt is shooting up. And I hit the speedbreaker at the end, and I and I put my arms out to be helped by these guys standing at the bottom. They were dressed in a baton something. Well, the minute they saw me coming bare to the waist practically, they left, they turned around and turned their backs to me, and I hit the speedbreaker, flew in the air, and landed on all fours in the middle of the tarmac. I was so embarrassed. Um and um I uh there was an ambulance there, and there was a guy really badly injured. I didn't turn back to look at the slide. I felt two people come down. I think it might have been Rani and Shirin, I don't know. And I um helped get this guy into the ambulance, he was very, very badly injured, and uh we took off to the terminal.

SPEAKER_16 2:22:39

I'll continue from there. Um I um after getting people into the uh airplane and uh we were looking around for other people to send down the slide. I've uh heard a cry from uh the rearmost section at uh uh the side of the galley at uh DE zone. So there was a lady at the back of the zone, and she was crying out loudly for help, and she couldn't stand and walk, and uh I couldn't carry her. She was heavier than I was. So um I hooked my arms from underneath her shoulders and I pulled her, dragged her across the floor and pulled her towards the galley and uh then towards the um uh door at R4 where I pushed her down into the slide and sent her down. Flight attendant Rani was also there, and there was another older man there at the door. We took him and pushed him also down the slide. Uh, walked around the cabin to see if there was anyone else there who needed our help. And um, well, uh at that point, flight attendant, it was the the cabin was eerily silent. After having been so loud and noisy with all the cries of pain, it was suddenly just extremely silent. And um, Rani looked down the aisle at me and she said, Come on, Shereen, it's time to go. Jump, jump. So I really felt grateful to her at that moment for having called out to me and said my name. So I saw Rani jump, and about a minute or so later, I followed down the slide as well. To the best of my knowledge, I was the last person off the airplane. Um, and we looked around, there was absolutely uh nobody there. So um no one moving, no one was able to cry out or uh come forward to um be evacuated. And um then I reached the bottom of the slide and I saw on the tarmac there was a man with uh an older man with a with a leg injury and he was crying out in pain. And um there was also a woman who said she had left her child behind. The man who had the injured leg um he said, Don't leave me, stay with me, stay with me. So um when the ambulance arrived, um I have uh I got into the ambulance with him and we went to the hospital. On the way there, his uh he had a terrible injury and I had to hold his leg for him. So his bone was sticking out, he was uh crying out in pain. And uh anyway, we reached the hospital, and um the hospital was as chaotic as the airplane had been. There were nobody, there was no one there to help. There was uh people were just on on the floor, and um uh doctors were doing the best um under their in this in uh that could be done under the circumstances, and it was just they they just were not prepared for um all the passengers that were headed their way.

SPEAKER_13 2:26:06

Bunch of idiots. They weren't even prepared with uh help for us. They had sticks running around with stupid sticks and hiding behind us. It was like it was just ridiculous. I I don't get the uh the news they put out there. Uh commandos stormed the plane, they did this, they did that. It was just disgusting. Just disgusting.

SPEAKER_15 2:26:31

This is Madhvi to add to the hospital. Uh, yes, I ended up in the hospital where I met up with Samira and other flight attendants, and yes, it was completely chaotic. I remember them telling me what happened to you, and I told them my back and my leg hurts really bad. They said, okay, well, take an x-ray. They took an x-ray, then they brought me a bunch of x-rays back and asked me to identify my x-ray. It was not even a picture. You're talking about an x-ray. I I I just didn't know what to answer. Anyway, they told me to sit down, then the doctor would get a chance to come and meet me. In the meanwhile, another passenger or oh, actually, a paramedic came and said they had this one kid and he had had a bullet lodged in his brain, and they were looking for his parents, and they wanted to find his parents. Uh, if I spoke the South Indian language, I remember going into this IT room, and the child was all wired up, and the only thing that I knew to ask in Tamil was, what is your name? And I attempted to ask this child what is his name. He was not replying. I tried in different languages. Well, when I say different languages, I mean like Tamil, Hindi, English, Marathi, Gujarati, which were like the local Indian languages I knew. The kid was South Indian, uh, from south of India and spoke a different language. The only line I knew in the language was what is your name? Basically, we wanted to find out what his name was so we could try to connect him with his parents, not we, the authorities could. And um, it was completely unsuccessful, just adding to the chaos. And as we walked around, I remember seeing Marianne just lying there in pain. We didn't even know what each of us was suffering. We didn't know what was happening with us. We just knew we were in pain, whether we were in shock or whether we were in physical pain. We had to spend our whole night in the hospital, they wouldn't let us go. I remember Samira and me. I, Samira, I don't know if you recall, we asked if we could go join the crew back. They said no, we are there for evaluation. While we were sitting in benches on for evaluation, just lined up on the floor for evaluation, until the following morning or a few hours later, they they drowned us, the few crew members that were there, and then took us to the hotel where the rest of the crew was. So I think about four or five of us were taken together and went and met up with the rest of the crew members, and all of us still had the bloody clothes in. And up until we reached the hotel, I don't even think any of us realized how bloody our clothes were and what was going on with us, simply because we were so oblivious of everything that we had come through. Just I think aware of the moment that we were alive, aware of the moment that we were breathing, aware of the moment that we were there. And so whatever we were wearing was so inconsequential till we arrived at the hotel. I remember them saying, Oh, we'll take you down to the boutique and just pick up something that you can fit in so you know you can change in. And then, of course, they were going to have the interviews with FA and everybody else.

SPEAKER_13 2:29:38

Um, I'd just like to add uh a little bit. When uh we were in Karachi when I was at the terminal, uh after the whole incident, we landed up at the terminal, and then they had uh they had captured three of the guys. One was injured. So uh they they took they asked me to identify the hijackers because they pretended like they were the passengers. So I went and Billy went and they said, You won't be seen. And they pushed me into a room where two of them were there, and I identified them, and they took me to the truck and uh where they had caught the third person, the one that was tied by rope, and uh I identified him, and then they asked me to come to the hospital and identify the fourth hijacker. Uh they took me to the morgue first, and as you uh enter the hospital, there was a line of shoes, bags, blood, all kinds of things just lined up in the morgue. They made me look at every dead person to see if one of the hijackers was them, and that's when I realized Ninja was dead. Then they took me up to the operation theater while all my guys were sitting on benches and waiting for treatment. That son of a cockroach, Mustafa, was in an operation of operating theater. Um, and the police were with me, they took me into the operation uh to the surgery unit, and the doctor comes and puts his hand against my shoulder and says, No, this is a sterile environment. So they got him on the bloody table before they got to my guys.

SPEAKER_12 2:31:42

Well, I want to thank each of you for uh sharing your difficult stories. Uh, what a terrible incident. And if I may be so bold, Madvi, Samira, Shereen, Sunshine, each of you are superheroes in my book. And you saved lives. And you should you should know that. And uh, you know, it's an incredible talking to you, and each of you are incredible women. I'm in awe of of what you you've you've told me and you know how many people each of you have have saved uh in that terrible incident.

SPEAKER_15 2:32:21

Thank you, thank you, Tom. That was very nice. Appreciate your thoughtfulness, truly.

SPEAKER_16 2:32:27

I think uh I just want to say a few words about uh the trauma of the day to uh people who may be listening to this podcast and um you know have heard what we've had to say. What we went through was extremely traumatic, and uh but here's here's the ray of light. Um after uh so many years, we do still have our memories, they're still vivid and clear, but I want people to know time heals. And um hopefully, uh, you know, if you stay connected with people, if you make uh the right efforts and moves, hopefully you can come through this and um with time.

SPEAKER_12 2:33:12

Well, thank each of you for your time. Um, I know it's been a difficult topic to talk about. Um and uh thank you for sharing sharing it with me and also sharing it with our audience and uh the Pan Am Museum.

SPEAKER_15 2:33:30

Uh just to add to uh just on the side note about the hijacking itself. So um this incident got over, but nothing came out of it in in in public or in recognition or acknowledgement until 20 years later, DOG gave us an award, which is the highest victims award. It took 20 years for it to come to fruit. There were a few of us that got together that fought. To get recognition. We fought to get a place in Arlington because Lockerbie had a spot. We fought to get a place for Pan Am 73, which did not fruitify. But there were few of us after the hijacking, five of us that really fought till the end, as far as as we could take to memorialize and immemorialize the happening. And we continued fighting. And of course, we are still fighting because there were a lot of things that happened after that that were not done right, not done right by the United States government, not done right. And this is not to politicize anything, just to continue the pain of anguish, where you you go through something, you testify, you get, and you only go 20 years later to testify because something else happens, it connects back, which 9-11 happens, it gives you then the platform to speak, which should have never taken that much time. And then after we do what we need to do and go through the pain and anguish of uh of our experiences back and forth. And when we go to when it comes to fruit, they tell us that because we were not American citizens at the time of the hijacking, we do not get anything out of this. While anybody who was an American citizen gets it. I know it isn't relevant, but this was my battle after and I spent hours, many, many hours putting this whole thing together, which frutified eventually to get the DOG recognition. And so I think just a small line of that is worth mentioning that you know this this is the fight that we came through. We continue to fight, we are still fighting, and in in spite of the fact that it's a fruitless fight, but we are still there because we know what we went through, we know the lives we saved, as we are as you can see, what each one of us said and did. And and yet to turn around and tell that just because you were not American citizens, you do not qualify for you know anything out of this. But we did not do that, we did not differentiate being Indian-American, Chinese, Japanese when we were saving lives. We were just doing our job and saving humanitarian. It was not doing your job, it was doing more than that. We were we were there to save lives, but the tables turned later. So I I wanted to add that. Thank you for letting me do it.

SPEAKER_12 2:36:31

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_14 2:36:32

And like I said, um Yes, uh just one last, just one last thing. This is Samira. I support what Madhvi just said. Uh in 1986, all of us on Pan Am Flight 73 were young, we were in our early 20s, we were not world-wise per se. And um in spite of that 16-hour trauma and the trauma that followed later on, um, I still remember not being able to listen to fireworks for years later. And but we were disappointed uh that we were not given any recognition uh for that day because we were Indian flight attendants.

SPEAKER_12 2:37:31

Thank you. And I I agree with everything that you just said, and like I said, each one of you are superheroes in my book, and you deserve all the recognition in the world. Thank you.

SPEAKER_16 2:37:47

Thank you for giving us this opportunity to share our stories with you.

SPEAKER_12 2:37:52

And and thank you for your time. I've I very much appreciate it.

SPEAKER_16 2:37:56

All right.