SPEAKER_19 0:00

An all-too-familiar story. Arab terrorists seize an American airliner. It ended today in a scene of smoke, screams, and gunfire. The hijackers shooting wildly. Passengers scrambling for their lives. Not all of them made it. Good evening. This is the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather reporting. The latest from the airport in Karachi, Pakistan. The Reuters News Agency now says at least 17 people are confirmed killed. They include two of the hijackers. Most of them died in the chaotic gun battle that ended the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73. Many more people, at least 65, were wounded by gunfire and rushed to hospitals. The kidnappers had held at least 350 hostages, including more than 40 Americans aboard the plane. They killed one American in the early stages of the siege. The end came suddenly. CBS News correspondent John Sheen in Pakistan tells us what happened.

SPEAKER_13 0:57

Pakistani commandos were preparing to storm the hijack 747, but according to eyewitnesses, they were not yet in position when suddenly all the floodlights around the plane went out. The air conditioning inside the plane was also cut off. The hijackers apparently panicked. Survivors say the terrorists ran screaming through the cabins, forcing passengers out of their seats and herding them to the center of the plane. Standing between the terrified hostages and the cockpit, the hijackers began throwing hand grenades and firing into the helpless people huddled together. Wounded and dead fell in the aisles and between the rows of seats.

SPEAKER_11 1:41

The only person I saw injured was my friends. They were sitting right next to me, and she had blood all over the chest.

SPEAKER_13 1:49

Hearing the explosions and gunfire, the commandos stormed into the aircraft firing their weapons. Pakistani officials say two of the terrorists were killed in the plane and two wounded and captured. A fifth man suspected of being a hijacker is unconscious and has not been positively identified. The terrorists had told their hostages that they belonged to a group called the Palestinian Commandos. The wounded have been taken to several Karachi hospitals. In one emergency ward, doctors treated a wounded hijacker and said he will survive. The woman passenger in the next bed died. John Shea in CBS News, Karachi.

SPEAKER_19 2:27

From beginning to end, it was 17 hours of terror at the airport. Here is what happened. The four gunmen seized the Pan Am plane late Thursday night U.S. time, Friday morning in Pakistan. The aircraft had arrived in Karachi from Bombay, India. It was en route to New York.

SPEAKER_18 2:45

The failure here was the failure of the airport security system. The airport perimeter was penetrated by these terrorists in a very clever way at a very convenient time.

SPEAKER_19 2:56

The hijackers were dressed as airport security guards. They were armed with grenades and machine guns. While passengers were boarding, the hijackers ran up steps of the plane. They fired shots. Hundreds of people had already boarded. Many more fled when they saw what was happening. At this point, a cabin attendant alerted the crew in the cockpit. The cockpit crew took action that a Pan Am official later described as, quote, the best and quickest way to immobilize an aircraft. The Pan Am crew got out through their own special escape hatch in the cockpit room.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

And we saw a crew member jumping out of the plane window. And we saw him catching hold of the rope.

SPEAKER_19 3:36

Two baggage handlers said to be Kuwaitis were wounded in the shooting at the time of the takeover. Later the hijackers shot and fatally wounded a passenger. He was Rajesh Kunar, a naturalized American citizen of Indian heritage who lived in California. They threw him under the tarmac. He died in a nearby hospital. A Pakistani official talked to one of the hijackers identified only as Mustafa. He quoted him as saying he was sorry about killing the Americans.

SPEAKER_10 4:01

What they said was that we have friends in Cyprus who are imprisoned. We just want to go to Cyprus to demand that those people who are our friends be released.

SPEAKER_19 4:15

The hijackers demanded a crew to fly to Cyprus. They set a deadline of 11 p.m. at 2 p.m. New York time. But the deadline had not even been reached when suddenly the lights of the aircraft went out. The hijackers started shooting aboard the plane. This afternoon I talked by telephone from New York to two of the lucky ones. Two American survivors in Karachi.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

It was about 9.15 and 9.20.

SPEAKER_17 5:23

You just heard a clip from CBS News on the evening of September 5th, 1986, when most Americans learned the terrifying news. This is a continuation of the last installment, episode 26, about the hijacking of Flight 73. In this episode, we'll be presenting interviews with three former Pan Amployees who were part of the aftermath. First, we will be speaking with Virov Deroga. He was Pan Am's country director for Pakistan during the incident and worked for the airline for more than 30 years from the early 1960s until the company ceased operations in late 1991. The nightmare of Flight 73 did not end on the tragic day in September of 1986, as the terrorist group responsible continued to threaten the lives of him and his family for many years afterwards. Then we'll be joined by flight attendant Wendy Sue Kinnect, who was stationed in Bombay in 1986, tasked with training new flight attendants hired in India. She is the author of the book Life, Love, and a Hijacking, My Pan Am Memoir, and is featured in episode 9 of this program. Wendy will be joined by Pan Am veteran Diane Krumholt's Lyrist, an employee from the White Plains Sales Office, who was immediately sent to Karachi as part of the airline's crisis response team to assist staff and families in the aftermath of the senseless violence. Mr. Daroga contributes an important first-hand perspective of the hijacking as he was involved with the early hostage negotiations from outside of the aircraft. Wendy and Diane will contribute their stories of the aftermath in the days that followed. On September 5, 1986, at around 5.10 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. A total of 20 people, ranging in ages from seven years old to 81, including two Pan Am crew members and 18 passengers, were ultimately killed in this act of terrorism. 22-year-old Pan Am senior purser Nirdra Banot died as a result of her injuries and was posthumously awarded India's highest civilian peacetime honor for bravery, the Ashokra Chakra Award, and became a revered national figure in India. 28-year-old Pan Am mechanic Mahirdri Karas was also killed by the terrorists when they opened fire inside the plane. Both served their passengers with great honor and valor. A quick editorial comment. Over the last 36 years, there's been a lot of misinformation published around Flight 73. The last episode was over two and a half hours, featuring first-hand accounts from four incredibly brave Pan Am flight attendants that were held hostage inside the aircraft and were eyewitnesses to history. This episode is over an hour and a half about the same topic. However, we are exploring a different perspective, what was going on outside the aircraft with Veroft's interview and then the aftermath from Wendy and Diane's point of view. We are presenting these two episodes about Flight 73 back to back to give listeners a complete and objective look at what happened during this historic event and the immediate aftermath through primary sources and first-hand accounts. We caution that some of our listeners may find the graphic details in our interview and news clips to be disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. Now on to our interview with Virov Deroga, Paniam's country director for Pakistan, 1986. Thank you so much, sir, for joining this program. Why don't we start on September 5th, 1986? How did you start your day?

SPEAKER_15 9:42

So on September 5th, I got a call at 6 in the morning, and I was told that some people had rushed into the armed people had rushed into the plane and taken the plane. So I quickly dressed up and I called the U.S. Council General. I woke him up and he spoke to him and he said, I'm going to the office and we'll stay in touch. And I left my house and went to the airport. My house was not very far from the airport, and in 1986 there was not that much of a traffic in the city, especially at the hour. So from my house, I think it took me no more than five, six minutes to get to the airport. I got to the airport, my car had the facility so that I could take my car on the ramp, normally, which is not allowed generally for the uh car to be taken on the ramp, private cars to be taken on the ramp. But since mine had that facility, I went straight to the aircraft and I saw my staff, they were by the side of the nose of the aircraft. They said that there was a vehicle parked close to L2 door, small mini van kind of a thing. And they my staff said they came in this vehicle and they just jumped out of the vehicle with guns and everything in their hand and rushed up and took the took the plane. When we got close to the vehicle, there was still a lot of ammunition lying in the vehicle. Whatever they could carry, I guess they just took that, which thought was sufficient to take the plane. So we said, We are not going to start the vehicle, we just push it just in case if it's not wired, then with the ignition to blow up. So we pushed the vehicle, and when I started to push the vehicle, Safarini came to the door and said, If you try to move that vehicle, it'll blow up. Don't even try it. This that but I we ignored him because we were not going to start the vehicle. We gently pushed it and pushed it to one side so that the officials could take the all the extra uh arms and ammunition which was in the vehicle. Now, when they came and went up on the airplane, they used the L2 door. Three of them were dressed in the airport security force uniform. One of them was not. One of them was wearing the normal attire of Shalwar and Kameez, which I'm sure you know what it is. It's like a loose pant kind of a thing and an open shirt. Because he wanted to carry some more ammunition. He took the shirt and tried to make it into a bag and put everything in it and rushed up. But when he rushed up, he dropped one grenade on halfway up the stair. When I first started talking with Safarini, both the doors had staired at one at L1 and L2.

SPEAKER_17 13:06

And Safarini is the lead hijacker, correct?

SPEAKER_15 13:10

The Safarini is the lead hijacker. The first time when I went and spoke to him, and he asked me who I was, and I said, I'm just I just told him, I'm just a duty officer today, because the head of Pan Am is not in town. I just told him that. And I said, I'm just a duty officer. Uh what is it that we can do to his first initial thing was uh okay, I'll I need better communication. And he said, have that step which is an L2 door removed. That's what he told me. So I said, All right, and I signaled to one of my staff to come and remove the step. And he as he drove the step backwards in reverse, the grenade which was on halfway up the stair came rolling down the stairway and was between my legs on the ground.

SPEAKER_17 14:12

What's going through your mind right now?

SPEAKER_15 14:15

I didn't even know that there was a grenade that rolled down, but it was my staff who saw this and did they signal to me to run, run, and I looked at them, and for a split second, I couldn't understand why they were telling me to run until one of them made a signal. Look down on the ground, look down on the ground. And I looked and I saw the grenade was between my feet, but I also saw that the pin was still lodged in there, the pin had not drawn out or anything. So I knew that as long as the pin is in, it's not going to explode. And if I try to run, this crazy guy, Safarini, is going to shoot me thinking there's something that's I'm about to do. So I said, okay, I'll come back to you in a little while and speak to you again. And he closed the door, and I picked up the grenade with my pen and handed it over to the official.

SPEAKER_17 15:20

Wow. And you were calm and collected while you did all this.

SPEAKER_15 15:25

Well, I think uh people do ask have asked me this question about how what was my thinking during I said I was so focused on trying to resolve the issue and how best to resolve the issue, that I never for a minute felt that my life is in danger in any way because I was entirely focused on how to get the people off that airplane without getting hurt, and what people have to understand is that in spite of my several requests to Safarini, that let the women and children go, let the women and children go. When I first spoke to him on the uh bullhorn, that's what I told him. Later on, when we were talking to him on the egg car from the radio, and when the gentleman was speaking to him in Arabic, he also said, Let women and children go. But you have to understand that to this group of people, and they're the way that they were, I suppose, brainwashed, mission is most important. Their mission was to fly the aeroplane out and to blow it up over Israeli that came out later on, of course, as you know. In speaking with me, and I told him, he said, get the crew to fly out. I said, Where do you want to go? He said, We want to go to Larnaca. I said, Larnaka, why Larnaca? Oh, we have a few of our people incarcerated there. We want to have them release. I said, if you give me the names of those people, I'll speak to the government officials here who in turn will get in touch with the officials in Larnaka to see how we can resolve this. So he said, No. Then I won't give you any names, no names. Why? Because that was a sham. They're not going to go to Larnaka to get anyone released. Look at Larnaca in proximity to Israel. Mission blow the plane over Israeli airspace.

SPEAKER_17 17:59

How did you find out that the pilots escaped?

SPEAKER_15 18:03

Oh, that when the when I got to the airport, the minute I got to the airport, I saw the device that they had used to come down, and I knew that they had the crew had evacuated. You know, this I don't know whether you're aware of how the cockpit crew can get out in an emergency from a 747. There is a hatch on top, and each one grabs a handle with a cable and they jump out, and according to their body weight, they are they are come down at that rate according to their body weight. So I saw the the airplane was in front of me with the the thing and deployed. So I knew that they had left the plane. And even my operations manager who was there, they said he said the crew is in our operations office. That's when I told him put them in a cab and send them to the US consular.

SPEAKER_17 19:02

Because you were worried about their safety.

SPEAKER_15 19:06

Not because I was worried about not only the safety, but the fact that at some point they might be pressurized to get on back on the plane to fly it out. But once they are removed from the airport and in a place where no officials can get to them to bring them back, US consulate office, they cannot go in.

SPEAKER_17 19:31

Because it's sovereign territory, a consulate.

SPEAKER_15 19:42

Uh when he said, I'm on communication. I said, would you be happy with a walkie-talkie? I said, I'll give you a set of walkie-talkie and I'll be on a walkie-talkie and we can talk. And he said, No, I don't want a walkie-talkie. So I asked the civil aviation people, can I get hold of an army field phone? Which is the one that they use by cranking it up, and they can you can have a wire coming down and you can listen. And they said, I asked him, would you take a uh the army cell phone, cranking phone? And he said, No, I will not accept that either. I want something better. And of course, during this, I was going backwards and forwards after talking to him to talk to the officials, and then he brought Kumar to the Helmand board. And you know the I'm sure you must have heard the story from the cabin crew, how Kumar was brought because he had a US passport, although he was an Indian national, but just because he had a and I think he made the fatal error of saying, Yes, I am a US citizen. Okay, so he was brought and saffering, I don't know why, till that time he was alright, but once he had brought Kumar and had him down, and I kept telling him, if you harm him, it's going to be very difficult for me to convince the officials of government of Pakistan to try and see how we can resolve this. Because I think they were aware of the fact that for hijacking, anyone who attempts hijacking in our country, the penalty is dead sentence. So they were probably worried that since this has failed and if they are caught by the officials, they might get arrested. I said, We'll talk about that with the government of Pakistan to resolve this, but don't harm Kumar. And he promised me, I said, give me. 20 minutes. He said, okay, I give you 20 minutes. And no sooner than I turned to walk away, he shot Kumar and threw him down.

SPEAKER_17 22:10

What were you thinking when you saw that happening?

SPEAKER_15 22:15

I didn't see it happening because I just turned around, but I heard the shot. And then I heard the shot, I immediately turned back and I saw Kumar being thrown out from the plane onto the ground. So I rushed to where Kumar was and he was still breathing at that time. And I signaled to an ambulance to be brought to carry him out. Because once he had shot Kumar, not only did he close the door, but he threw the gun also down with Kumar. The gun with which he had shot him. So he picked up the gun and gave it to the to the officials, and Kumar was sent in the ambulance to the hospital. But I think before he reached, before he got to the hospital, he had died.

SPEAKER_17 23:04

So what are you thinking about, sir, during you just saw somebody get shot and thrown off?

SPEAKER_15 23:11

I say when when that happened, I knew that once he has shot one, he will have no hesitation because he kept saying, I'll shoot every 15 minutes one passenger. Okay. So that was when I had the most difficult choice. It was Hobson's choice. That I had to tell him about my staff who was trapped inside on the plane who could work the radio. I had not revealed that to him for the first two hours that I was talking to him during that period. I never revealed to him that. But once he shot Kumar, I knew that I was up against a situation where he would have no hesitation shooting somebody else. So I had to tell him about my staff. As I told him his name, and before as he was going to call out to him, I said, please tell him to get on the cockpit radio on 131 decibel 4. That frequency was Pan Am Operations Office Aircraft to Operations Office Communication. And I did that on purpose because if I would have told him about the tower frequency, it was 118, I would have had no control over what conversation took place. But having told him about the Pan Am office, I was able to tape the conversation. That was the criteria.

SPEAKER_17 24:52

And did Pan Am operations in New York, when were they notified that this was going on?

SPEAKER_15 25:00

Oh, I think um I think they got notified by the media, worldwide media, that something like this had happened. I couldn't speak to them because all the phones in our Pan Am office were jammed by people calling in from all over to know about their brother or sister or husband or wife who is on the plane. So and so, especially from India. There were a lot of Indians on that plane. So the phone lines to my office were all jammed. So eventually, Pan Am New York set up an open phone line in the Lufthansa office, Lufthansa Airline office. Lufthansa people came and told me now we have an open, you have an open line between here and New York. You can go and speak from our office. Because nobody was calling Lufthansa office. So I used to go, I went there and I spoke first. It was, I would say, after the first at least maybe three hours of the incident. I told him, Yes, this was what it was, and this is how it was. Then came the question of who were the hijackers, what nationality were they? So the government officials, government of Pakistan officials asked me, you spoke to the guy. Who do you think what nationality is? Looking at the guy, I can't tell you what nationality is, but he's certainly not, he's certainly somebody from an Arabic country for a fact, because his looks and his accent in speaking. So they said, okay, we'll we'll in a little while we'll come back to you. They went and collected the passport data of from every hotel in Karachi. So there were about like 70, 80, or maybe 100 passports that they brought. And they said, can you go through this passport and see if you can find this guy you've been talking to? So I picked out Safarini from that, this passport, and in turn, we were able to then establish the three other guys because they had all checked in into the same hotel, same time, and they were all in the same group. That's how they found out that this was a Palestinian group that carried out the article.

SPEAKER_17 27:56

So the government knew who they were not too long after this incident started. Yes, yes, they knew, definitely. And did the American government have any kind of representation in the airport in the Panium office?

SPEAKER_15 28:15

Once the communication took place between Safarine from Cockpit and my operations office, US consulate staff was in the operations office, sitting and listening to the conversation that was taking place. Okay. I suppose it was all right till that first initially when it was in English, but once the switch over to Arabic, but then they also had a government of Pakistan official sitting in the office along with the American national. But the conversation was being recorded anyway on the tape, and the transcript of the conversation was then translated into English by the US government because there were five cassette tapes that had all the information, and when I went to the grand jury hearing, I was asked about the tapes, and they said, Where are the tapes? And I said, They are in my custody back home. Oh, why did you not bring it with you? I said, I didn't know I was supposed to bring because I didn't even know that there was a grand jury. So they said, We would like you to give those tapes to us, hand them over to us. I said, I'll send you a set of copies. They said, No, we want the originals. So I handed, I sent my men when I got back to Karachi. I sent my men to New York to hand over the tapes to them. And I had four, at least three other sets, copies made. And as I presumed would happen, government officials, government of Pakistan officials came to me on the third or the fourth day of the incident, and they said, We understand you have recorded the conversation on tapes. I said, Yes, but you have to give us the tapes. And I just wanted to test them. So I said, No, these are property of Pan Am. I can't give them to you. He said, You give it to us, or we will officially charge, charge sheet you and make sure that you get all. So I gave them the set of tapes which were copied. The original went to US.com.

SPEAKER_17 31:33

So let's get back to September 5th for a second.

unknown 31:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 31:38

So uh Kumar was killed. You're in the Panium office, uh, going back and forth to the Luftanza office. You have American and Pakistani government officials, and you were in conversation with the hijackers via radio.

SPEAKER_15 31:59

I was not in conversation. You were not on the on the radio. I was not. I only initially wanted to make sure that what I had suggested had taken place, which was that the aircraft radio communication was linked up to the operations office. So I went and I called out to my staff. I said, Merji, can you hear me? He said, Yes, I can hear you. I said, Okay, that means that now we I know the conversation the link works, you know. And I said, I'll be in touch with you. I said, so just keep operating the radio as requested. And I didn't realize that when Merji first called out on the radio, Safarini was with him, standing next to him, and so was either Sunshine or some other crew member. And of course, Merji didn't know that earlier I had told him that I was a duty officer and not the number one man of Pan Am in Pakistan. The Merji told him he is the director for Pan Am in Pakistan. He said, next time when he comes in front of me, I'll shoot him.

SPEAKER_08 33:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_15 33:32

The flight attendant, the flight attendant, whoever that was, said no, no, no, this is not the same person. He doesn't sound like the same person, and she just kind of threw cold water on the whole thing by saying it is not the same person. But that's how it was.

SPEAKER_17 33:52

And you heard all of this on the radio.

SPEAKER_15 33:56

No, I didn't think I this business about uh telling him who I was and his thing, conversation was a statement made by the flight crew in their report. Each one of them, sunshine, sheri, also each one of them have given a little thing, and it's in there that this guy have recognized my voice and asked who I was.

SPEAKER_17 34:25

So when you read this after the fact, what was going through your mind?

SPEAKER_15 34:31

My uh what was going through my mind was how do I get the 300 odd passengers off the plane safe and sound? How do I make sure nothing untowards happens to them? That was in my mind. How do I get some what kind of support will I get from the government of Pakistan if they will give me, allow me to do what I want to in order to ensure that the uh people get out of the plane safe and sound? That's what the these are the things that were going through my mind.

SPEAKER_17 35:12

After you established radio contact with the aircraft and the Pan Am office, who was the person that was communicating with the hijackers?

SPEAKER_15 35:24

Initially, I made the contact and I spoke to him. And I think subsequently, because I didn't stay in the Pan Am office all the time, whilst this was that I walked out of the office to attend to other things, you know, that were taking place. So I think the official of the government of Pakistan was trying to talk to him, and he said, Safari said, I want somebody who speaks Arabic. So they were wondering how to get hold of somebody who and they found out that there was a gentleman who worked for Saudi Arabian Airlines in one of their offices who could speak Arabic. So they went and got him from the office and told him now to talk to him in Arabic. That's how the conversation went. So once the conversation went in Arabic, and I couldn't understand a word of it, so there was no sense in my hanging around to listen to the conversation.

SPEAKER_17 36:32

That's how it was. So walk us through the rest of the day from this point forward from your perspective.

SPEAKER_15 36:42

To try and speak to the officials to ask them if they have any plan, what is plan A or plan B that I need to know? What are they going to do? And this that my communication basically with the Director General of Civil Aviation was there, who was the spokesperson on behalf of the higher officials of government of Pakistan. Okay. He was the number one man present at the airport. But he never came anywhere near the plane. He sat in the office in the main airport building and he would instruct the Director General of Civil Aviation Nirza to say what he wanted to or what should be done next, or so on. I found out during one of the breaks, I found out that they had brought in a crew who was supposed to be who would eventually see if they can take over the plane, like a commando action against the hijackers. Pakistan International Airline also had a 747 in their anger facility, and these people, I think, were trying to figure out how to enter from which side to enter and so on. But they never ever came and spoke to me because they were sitting about half a mile away from where the Pan and plane was. So it's going to take them time to come from there in case they want to carry out some kind of an activity to save the passengers. My suggestion was to the Director General of Civil Aviation, which means government of Pakistan. I said, why don't you bring them and put them under the Pan Am aircraft? You can bring them from the tail of the plane. But at least they should be as close as possible in case something happens so that they can take action. But they wouldn't listen. Look, the aircraft is on aircraft power unit. Aircraft power unit is not designed to run for hours and hours. Aircraft power unit is designed to run for the two hours that the aeroplane is on the ground anywhere in the world. I said, allow us to plug in a ground power unit so that in case the air power unit shuts down, you have the facility of switching on the ground power unit. But since Safarini said had said earlier that no equipment near the plane, they said, No, we'll not allow you to put a ground power unit next to the plane. I said, if the aircraft power unit shuts down, not only will you not have electricity, but there'll be no air conditioning. All the doors of the plane are shut. I said the airplane will get will boil up in no time with 300 people on board. But they wouldn't allow the ground power unit or the air conditioning unit to be plugged in. My maintenance manager who backed me up on this, who was with me, also suggested that we should perhaps put our Pan Am lights with generator around the plane. So come evening when it gets dark, at least we'll have light around the plane. Would you believe it? They said no. There is no need for any generator or lights around the plane. You know what? Then in the evening, when it was getting dark, I said we should have the lights on, the tower lights. Instead of having them on, they had the tower lights near the plane off. All around the airport, the tower lights were off. So when the APU failed late in the evening, and then it was getting they lost radio communication. They realized the aircraft was facing oil company facility of Caltech. Caltex had an oil facility building right next to the ramp area of the plane, and our aircraft was facing that. So I said, I went up into the Caltex building and I looked, and that's when I found out that the APU had shut down because Sharin, I think, was standing in the cockpit with a piece of paper in her hand covering the bright light because the hijackal ordered her to do that. You see, when when the APU failed, the emergency light in the cockpit, which comes on, is very bright. So when I went up into the Caltex building and I looked into the aircraft from the windshield of the plane, I could see Merji, I could see the hijacker, and I could see the crew with holding the paper on the light. And that's when I went back and I told them we have a problem because now there's no APU. The airplane will heat up very quickly. I said, for God's sake, put the tower lights on. Now you're not going to believe what I'm going to tell you next. It was Mirza, the Director General of Survey, myself, and the airport electrician, three of us in a boink, went to the aircraft where the aircraft was parked to switch on the light. I told the guy, just switch on the light. He said, I can't switch on the light. Why have you come? What do you mean you can't switch on the light? He said, There are no switches to the light. They work on solar light. So if there is no, if it's not on, we cut the wires, we cut the electric wires so they wouldn't come off. So I said, now you have to connect the wires, that's going to take time. And true enough, as I I'm speaking and Mirza and I are on the ground. I said, Let me go and at least talk to him, Safarini, to say, okay, we are putting the lights on. I had hardly hardly walked two paces and the shooting started inside the car. That's how close I came to the moment when the shooting started. The first door to open when the shooting started was right four door. Right four door. That's because three of my staff who were trapped inside during the when the airplane was taken off. Altogether, six of my staff were trapped inside. But three of them were near the R4 door. And when these guys started shooting indiscriminately at everyone in the darkness, and one of the hijackers was there at the R4 door. The three of them caught hold of the hijacker, threw him between the rows of seat, and they opened the door. They opened the door. But the first staff of mine that jumped out from the plane, he hit the ground even before the slide had inflated. He was hurt on the head and he was taken to the hospital for treatment. But that was the first door to be open. And after that, the other doors, other slides of other doors started to open. And of course, the wing exit doors was opened, and people started jumping out on the wing, trying to come out from there.

SPEAKER_17 45:56

When you started hearing the uh gunfire, what was going through your mind at that time?

SPEAKER_15 46:04

Oh, I I there's no question of anything going through my mind. I knew that this is it, this hell broken loose. If they're firing inside, I of course I couldn't tell whether how much damage they're done with the firing, but as this flight inflated and my staff came down and they said they're shooting indiscriminately. So I knew that a lot of people must have been killed inside. I was fully aware of that. But by grace of God, when you think about 300 odd people in a confined area and only 20 get killed, it's just unbelievable, especially when they lobbed grenades and automatic weapon shots. Most of the people who got killed were the Indian nationals. They got killed. And severely injured was Catherine Hill. Catherine Hill was one of the passengers on the plane. She was very badly injured. Her whole back had been blown up practically. She was one of the three or four who were evacuated immediately to Germany from Pakistan for treatment there. She survived. Her father works used was working for MI-5 or MI-4. He sent me a very nice letter after the incident.

SPEAKER_17 47:35

What would you like people listening to know about Flight 73 and the people that you knew that were involved and what you experienced?

SPEAKER_15 47:49

Once the people had jumped out, there was a gentleman from Black Dell US national. He and his wife were on the plane. He also came down from uh right force line, came down and stopped to talk to me because I knew him. And he said, We're up there just indiscriminately shooting and lobbing grenades. So you can imagine what goes through your mind. You you sometimes think that at least more than 100 people must have been killed with three 300 people on board and with all the shooting and all that. But you see, as as quickly as it had started, it even immediately stopped. And I feel that there would have been more people there if they had not accidentally shot Safarini. His own man accidentally shot him. When Safirini fell, the other three decided they were going to get out along with the people that were rushing out. Whatever they had thrown as way of grenades, whatever bullets they had fired, that stopped immediately as Safarini was injured. So they jumped out with the passengers, and they also went to the same place where the passengers were taken. The passengers recognized them and the officials just caught them. One of them tried to scale the wall and tried to get out of the airport, but he was also caught. So all three of them were caught, and Safferini was taken to the hospital. And it was at the hospital that they found out that he was wearing that plastic explosive belt round his waist, that he had battery in his trouser pocket, and the detonator was in his collarbone, shirt collarbone. Went with her and uh took her to the hospital. But I think the hospital was overwhelmed with a lot of people that were brought there. And they couldn't cope up with everybody immediately. Perhaps they didn't attend to the Nirja in time for whatever the reason. But Nirja passed away and she died in the arms of my staff because as he was walking away, she said, Don't go away, just hold me. And he held her and she died.

SPEAKER_17 50:59

Wow. What message do you have for our listeners on why this historic event is important?

SPEAKER_15 51:10

Well, you know, um, unfortunately, so many people on Facebook and all this media, each one giving his own version of what they think happened, not knowing the truth. Uh initially, I responded to a couple of them initially saying, No, this is not what you have mentioned, is not factual, this is not true, this is your say, and so on. But then I stopped doing it because I felt, how am I going to respond to 50, 60 people who will keep writing about the same thing over and over again, not knowing the truth? A lot of that happened post-incident, and so then I decided I was not going to write anymore.

SPEAKER_17 52:05

Let's talk a little bit about what happened after the shooting. Uh, there are several accounts that there were Pakistani commandos um and emergency equipment that storms the aircraft. I've read that several times in a couple different articles.

SPEAKER_15 52:26

That's that's what I mentioned earlier. None of the commandos were anywhere near the plane when the shooting started. Yes, they did come when more than half the aircraft had already evacuated because they were half a mile away. When they found out the shooting had started, they got onto a bus, and from the bus, they were having the dinner, they were eating the dinner at the time the shooting started. So they left that, they got on the bus and they came to the aircraft. By that time, more than 50% of the airplane people had already evacuated one way or another. There was no question of the commandos carrying out anything. The hijackers had even left. So, where is the question of commandos coming to help and rescue the people? They weren't anywhere there. None of the none of the crew passenger will ever say that yes, some rescue effort was made.

SPEAKER_17 53:29

And that's what the the flight attendants that that I spoke with and one of the passengers I spoke with, um, they all say the same thing. But when you read accounts and articles, they make it sound like the Pakistani commandos rescued everyone.

SPEAKER_15 53:46

I didn't, I don't know, but if somebody made that statement, I'm not aware of it, but I can assure you that was not the case at all. Okay, this passenger may have been one of the ones who evacuated later than the first batch, and the commandos had just reached the plane and they were holding their hand and making them sit in the vehicle, so he might be under the impression the commandos were trying to rescue them. But other than that, I don't think not one bit of uh help came from the commandos in way of rescue.

SPEAKER_17 54:30

Let's talk up for a moment about the pilots. Uh, there was lots of controversy at the time that uh the pilots should or should not have abandoned the plane and the crew. In a post-9-11 world now, it's pretty clear that the crew did exactly the right thing. Absolutely. Is there anything you want to comment on the pilots evacuating and the controversy?

SPEAKER_15 54:59

Well, I think I did mention earlier that that was the best thing they did. I'm glad that they got out of that way, the airplane stayed on the ground. At that way, a lot of things happened. We got to know who the people were, we got the who the terrorists were. Uh, we got to know what was the modus operandi of the whole thing. Uh, if if the crew would have been there and they've flown off, nobody would have known where they're going, what they're going to do. So this actually, uh this came up as a matter of fact. See, one week before the incident, I was in a training program of Pan American in Berlin on safety and security pertaining particularly to this type of a thing like a hijack or a bomb on board in a baggage and things like that. One of the things, perhaps in the in the discussion that we had, we we talked about uh what would be the good thing, right thing to have the aeroplane up in the air or on the ground? And I everyone, I think, in the training program, there were I think eight or ten of us, and we all felt that the best thing is to have the plane on the ground so we can then understand what is going on and negotiate and do whatever we need to.

SPEAKER_17 56:32

How did September 5th, 1986 change you?

SPEAKER_15 56:38

Uh I can say that um when one experiences something like this, it's a fact that after even 35 odd years that have taken place from the incident, I have lived with every minute of what happened on that day to date. Meaning one can never forget, one can never wipe out anything. You might miss a name or you might miss, but the sequence of events that took place on that day cannot be erased in any manner from your mind. It stays with you. And I have not ever lost a single minute of what had happened or what could have happened. All that stays in my mind even to date. After the incident, what people don't know that there was a lot of threat, personal threat on me from the group of the ones who had from where the hijackers came. I would get phone calls at three in the night or four in the night telling me that we will get to you, we'll get to your family, because they knew that the court case was going on for the hijackers where I would be testifying. Since the hijackers were now incarcerated in the prison, and I would be the one talking about in the court about them. This was the threat to me. So Pan Am had a personal safety team of people at my house 24 hours, plus a personal guard of mine who went with me wherever I went, an armed guard, to ensure that nobody came near me. And I lived with that till the hijacking trial and everything took place, and then eventually it came to this that yes, they will stay in the prison for 20 odd years.

SPEAKER_17 58:56

That's extraordinary. So the terrorist group was targeting you, and Pan Am hired bodyguards, yeah.

SPEAKER_15 59:07

Security. The same security company, which was at the U.S. consulate and an embassy, the same people were employed by Pan Am to take care of my safety and my family. There were armed security people at my house 24 hours, and there was armed bodyguards that went with me wherever I went.

SPEAKER_17 59:32

So you not only went through the horror of Flight 73 on September 5th, 1986, but you had to live like this for how long?

SPEAKER_15 59:42

The Pan Am guards stayed with us at our house till the closure of Pan Am.

SPEAKER_17 59:49

So 1991.

unknown 59:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 59:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_15 59:52

Uh so it's five years, and I think 5 September 1986 to 1990. Wow. And then and and and the personal bodyguard of mine. Now, I I generally don't mention this to others, but here is the thing how life changes for everybody. My office was located in at the corner of a hotel called Hotel Metropol. That's where the Pan Am office was. So, in order to come to my office, I would come in the car vehicle, park my vehicle in somewhere close to my office. Sometimes I may be a few hundred feet away from my entrance of my office door, or so I would park the vehicle and walk into my office. Okay. The bodyguard that I had with me was to walk 10 paces behind me, not with me, not by my side, but he would walk about eight to ten paces behind me so that he could eyeball anybody approaching me. Now, I parked the car and in order to get to my office, I had to cross a bank. Next to the Panam office was a bank. I had just crossed the entrance of the bank heading toward my office when an alarm from the bank went out for a theft. A hooter sounded, and a man with two bags of stolen money jumped out of the bank. Now, visualize this. I am I am just crossed the door, he has just jumped out of the door, and my bodyguard is just behind the door. So, what do you think happened? My bodyguard caught hold of that guy, but that was his fatal mistake because no one man ever comes to rob a bank. There will always be somebody to assist him. So his accomplice was sitting on a motorcycle, he got off the motorcycle and shot my guard in the head and killed him. Oh my gosh, and both of them escaped. Wow. So here's another experience to my life. You can write up.

SPEAKER_17 1:02:32

You not only had to go through the hijacking, but you and your family had to live under armed guard for the next five years. And an unrelated incident of you walking to work past a bank, there was a bank robbery. Yes, your bodyguard was trying to stop the robber, and his accomplice shot him in front of you. Yeah, his accomplice shot him in front of you.

SPEAKER_15 1:03:02

As he as he shot, I didn't realize that he had grabbed it, but when he heard the shot, I turned around to look and I saw my bodyguard just fall on the ground, and this guy jumping onto the motorcycle and running away with his accomplice.

SPEAKER_17 1:03:19

I mean that this is extraordinary. So, how did this affect your family?

SPEAKER_15 1:03:30

My children were small at that time. Not small, but they were teenagers. I don't know how. Maybe my daughter can explain to you how she felt at that time.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:49

So um uh from my siblings, I was the only one left at home. Um, my sister had married and left, and my brother had left uh very soon after high school. They were both in the US. So basically, I was there, and uh of course um it was an invasion of privacy because there were always these people, you know, there at home. Um, and uh in one way, yes, you did feel secure and safe, but at the same time, you know, you also wanted the freedom of being able to come and go as you please. And um, I knew my mom and dad was very scared whenever I had to go anywhere alone. Looking back, I can well imagine what must be going through their minds. But at that time, you know, when you're a teenager and you have a car and you don't want to be answerable to anybody about your movements. At that time, I thought it was a real invasion of you know everybody sort of bearing down on me. But uh yeah, uh all said and done, when uh maturity hit finally, I realized that it was for my own good that they needed to know where I was and what I was doing at all times. Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 1:05:17

Interesting. Thank you for sharing that. So let's talk a little bit about Pan Am for a moment. So you worked for Pan Am for over 30 years. Looking back, what would you like our listeners to know about your experience? How was your experience special with Pan Am?

SPEAKER_15 1:05:43

You know, during the 30 years with Pan Am, I started my career on the engineering side. I joined Pan Am on the engineering side. I was I'm an aircraft licensed engineer. worked on every conceivable can you every conceivable airplane from uh DC three, DC four, DC six, L749, L149, the whole kaboot right from DC three to seven four seven. So I'm uh basically I started my career on the engineering side and I worked my way up into other areas, the flight operations and so on and then eventually marketing and I started in the absence of the um US national who was the head of Pan Am at that time. I um whenever he was out of town I used to on his behalf be the head of the Pan Am and eventually Pan Am decided to make me the head and uh so I was the first native of the land that became the head of Pan Am in 1980. And 1982 there was a bomb attack on my office which I had just left the office and somebody just blew up portion of my office. In 1983 a Pan Am aircraft in bad weather went off the air uh landing strip was barren in the ground and I had to dig it out and take it out from there. So that was another experience and then in 86 was the Pan Am hijack. So when I went to see the chairman of the chairman asked to meet with me shortly after the Pan Am incident uh in the month I think it was in December when I went to see him incident that taken place in September. And Edgar was the chairman of Pan American and I went to see him and he said I don't know of anybody who has had an airplane go off the runway and salvaged it I don't know of anybody who's had his office bombed and I don't know of anybody who has done a hijack sexy since you are a complete individual in our opinion he was just joking with that but yes that these are the things that happened in 30 years I am I think I experienced everything that one can experience in a 30 year lifetime so yes there's a lot of fond memories about certain things too so these are the things that happen in life with someone can never forget them.

SPEAKER_17 1:08:47

Well I'd like to thank you for your time I know it's been a difficult topic talking about flight 73 and also the aftermath of flight 73 uh and the five years that you had to live under armed guard but also thank you for sharing all your your Pan Am stories and thank you for everything that you've you've done for uh this great airline and the 30 years that you've worked for it and it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you. Thanks before our next interview with Wendy and Diane let's take a quick listen to a report from the American news program Nightline that aired in the early hours of the morning of September 6th, 1986. It includes interviews from victims recovering at the hospital. The clip is about four and a half minutes long. Thankfully the predicted casualty count at the beginning of this report was overestimated and only 20 passengers and crew were killed with over a hundred injured this is an expanded edition of ABC News Nightline reporting from Washington Ted Koppel.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:00

It is a trite observation but it is also true the hijacking ended as quickly as it began. But the ending was even more violent and far bloodier than the beginning. The wounded are scattered about in different hospitals in Karachi tonight so there is still no precise count. But it may well be that of the 400 people who were aboard Pan American Flight 73 a third or even more will have been killed or wounded when the count is complete. Now is the time to begin standing back to separate fact from unconfirmed rumor. Tonight we can begin listening to the stories of those who were there in the plane we'll hear from them in a few minutes. By this afternoon our producers, camera teams and correspondents finally reached Karachi.

SPEAKER_12 1:10:45

Among them Mark Litke Pan Am Flight 73 sits on the tarmac at Karachi International Airport. Barely a sign of the horrible events that occurred only hours before but a few miles away at Jinnah the full extent of the carnage is clearly apparent the dead both young and old laid out in a temporary morgue here too dozens of the wounded who survived many still confused, unsure of all that had happened but a few were able to tell us the tragic sequence of events which began at 630 in the morning. They were just reboarding the flight the boarding process was almost complete. Then four to six uniformed men jumped on board at first passengers thought they were security agents.

SPEAKER_14 1:11:34

One man we're machine gun machine with a policeman like policeman yeah and uh come up with a plane so speaking of the guns and words to the same everybody keep your head down all of them if you move in the kids will be dead passengers said they were then herded to the center of the plane the hijackers angry and apparently uncertain what to do when they found out the pilot co-pilot and engineer had escaped.

SPEAKER_12 1:12:23

They were talking to each other they were calling each other then with the morning near 10 pm the power suddenly went out the morning was thrown in the darkness the horrible ending was about to begin with Pakistani emergency services were pushed to the limit trying to deal with the dead and wounded an American embassy official wandered through the corridors of this hospital not sure how many Americans had been caught up in the massacre in the end the comment of one doctor in this morgue just about summed up the day's tragic events. With all this he said it's hard to believe anyone survived it's Saturday morning now here in Karachi and the situation is still horribly confused 24 hours after this hijacking began. The dead and the wounded are scattered in several hospitals here in the Pakistani capital. The survivors are scattered around several hotels and authorities are still closeted with two of the surviving hijackers trying to get some information out of them. It still may be hours if not days before authorities are able to piece together just exactly what happened here.

SPEAKER_17 1:14:31

Now on to our interview with Pan Am veterans Wendy Sue Connect in Diane Krumholt's lyrics about the aftermath and the days following the violent hijacking of Flight 73. Welcome to the program Diane and Wendy Diane you serve with Wendy and I on the Pan Am Museum board and Wendy welcome back Wendy is featured in episode nine of this program. Welcome both of you thank you thank you yes very good to be here Tom yeah so we would like to get your perspectives you both have an interesting story the aftermath of flight 73 in both Bombay India now called Mumbai and Karachi Pakistan Diane why don't we start with you okay where were you working in the company of Pan An and how did you get assigned to Karachi?

SPEAKER_06 1:15:31

I was a an account manager for the White Plains sales office with Dick Blair in New York and I was called right after the hijacking to go to the office. What we did is we created a home base and while I was there manning the phones um I got another call from Dick Blair telling me okay go home pack your bags and just go straight to the airport you are assigned to go help with the cor with the incident. So what they did do is they used the sales force as uh goodwill ambassadors so I just had enough time to go home that day change pack my bag and I was off to to Kennedy we went from JFK straight to Frankfurt we still didn't know what our assignments were uh they just said just be there. So when we got to Frankfurt they briefed us and then they assigned us um at this point there were three of us from the White Plain sales office Howard Morris I believe he went to India and Monica Clark who is an ex Pan Am flight attendant who happened to work with us in the White Plain sales office she and I were assigned to this family the Sanchala family and um we took them it was um Dr. Sanchala and his nephew and we went straight to Karachi. So we got there about like 3 30 in the morning local time this wasn't until Monday morning so after midnight and basically we had enough time to go to our rooms freshen up drop our things meet back in the lobby and head off to the hospitals because we really didn't know where everyone was so we went to like three different hospitals that was an experience in itself um so the brother in law of Dr. Sanjala he was okay just in shock his wife she had some uh scrap metal in her leg and you know she wasn't too bad but their niece it was she was 15 years old she actually um had a bullet in her lung so that's what we had to do we had to go around and make sure that everybody was okay and that was a long morning and then of course you know after that we went back to the hotel to freshen up and rest and were told to go to the um the ticket office or the main office where uh varoff Daroga and his team were wow he is I have to say what a professional and amazing man so when we got there you know they briefed us again on what we needed to do. So we had to at that point I remember going to find their luggage I remember going to the room with all the luggage with all the bullet holes in it it was it was uh now you have to remember we we were very young at the time I was 29 and I and the flight attendants were even younger. So this was um a big experience I had never been to that part of the world it was very different. The people really are truly wonderful. And um and then I kept meeting up with our family we made sure that they were taken care of and uh the brother got out of the hospital we had to wait for his uh sister-in-law and finally his niece um so you know we had to take care of all their luggage and their paperwork and their visas and whatever else they needed at the time this took quite a few days and every day going for briefings every day seeing what we had to do keeping in touch with New York um and you know towards the end it took a good seven eight nine days when it looked like maybe we can start think about going back home because we had to make sure of course uh his niece was okay.

SPEAKER_17 1:19:49

And Wendy I understand that you were on the same plane uh earlier that day on September 5th in the early hours you were flying from Los Angeles to Frankfurt to Karachi and then on to Bombay and it was the same plane once it got on onto Bombay um they refueled cleaned the aircraft restocked the aircraft and then it became flight 73 and your flight was flight 72. Walk us through uh the day for you on September 5th 1986.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:28

Well um I had previously spent about you know a few months in India doing training with uh all the new Indian flight attendants and so I got to know the families pretty well and obviously the families and the flight attendants who were just amazing and wonderful. So um I went back after our assignment I took a leave of absence and I went left on September 4th as you said my flight went LA Frankfurt Karachi Bombay and you get in about three in the morning and waiting in when I got off the plane waiting in the jet way were the flight attendants ready to board the um or they were actually they were in the um transit lounge waiting for the flight as you say to be cleaned and restocked and everything. And we just you know we're so happy to see one another we just hugged and it was just such a proud moment because this was really their first flight as with Goldwings they'd passed their six month mark of um probation which all flight attendants are on probation until um six months and so it's just so proud you know knowing we'd been through this whole process together even uh we did our training in London and then we did the training in Bombay where I would um I and the other supervisors a couple of us would go on each flight when they went Bombay Frank uh Bombay Karachi Frankfurt and back so it was just an incredible moment when I got there to see them and then they went back on the flight and the rest is history as you know so when I got to the hotel I remember being woken up you know just out of a sound sleep with this awful news my friend was like you're not gonna believe this flights flight 73 your flight was hijacked so that was completely earth shattering and then later on um obviously I when we realized what was happening and we didn't really know exactly what was going on because the flight was still being held uh and all the news we really got was from the television and we knew the the flight was being held in Karachi we didn't know and I remember when Mr.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:08

Kumar was shot and the whole thing was just terrifying terrifying sitting there watching and of course we called cruise scheduling right away to find out you know what's going on is there anything we can do or actually it was operations there and that's how you know obviously after the um how disaster the ending of that terrible hijacking I got very involved with the aftermath of you know all the all the goings on so Diane when you arrived in Karachi what was it like was there still horror and pandemonium no no it was it was it was kind of surreal there was like a silence around and everybody was very sober somber and um they they were very good they just whisked us off and took us straight to the hotel the intercontinental hotel there um yeah it was it was like the door closed it was pretty quiet kind of surreal um and then of course once we you know went to the hospitals and then back to the office the reality of everything did hit us all um it it was very emotional totally emotional especially when the families all reunited and all um of course it was like very early in the morning and Wendy once you talked to the Panium uh scheduling office what happened next oh well of course you know they were like stand by we're gonna need you and then once the hijacking was over um the fall I think it was the following day um they had a bunch of us that went out to the airport to re the recovery flight which was an Air India flight and we had heard you know that there were a lot of injuries because as you know the some of the doors opened without slides and we had people jumping off wings and flight attendants and passengers a uh especially the you know what I knew about mostly was the flight attendants that had injured their backs and their necks jumping off you know a 747 wing which is what about 18 feet 20 feet and so they were um not in good shape and then the our job at the time at the airport was to kind of do triage you know direct people where they had ambulances around and we were to figure out like who you know who needed to go where and once people started coming off that plane I would just never forget it because you don't realize that these people didn't have a chance to change their clothing.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:24

They were all in their you know the original clothing that they had on when they left and so many were bloodstained and then there were people that had to be treated in the hospital in Karachi that were you know bandaged heads bandaged arms broken so much you know there was and there was so much damage from the shrapnel and bleeding and then of course we also you know our hearts were just broken because Nurja's body was on that flight and that is when I met Mr Banat Nurja's dad and uh he was uh you know I mean he was obviously a wreck but the whole thing was very emotional and then obviously when people started coming off there were it wasn't just the Pan Am people greeting the plane it was all the families so it sort of turned into a little bit of pandemonium trying to get wheelchairs directed to ambulances and then trying to reunite the families there was just a lot of a lot of chaos at one point I remember but um that was quite a day. And then afterwards the flight attendants that were injured, you know, all went to the hospital and they um retreated there and then uh we had a nearja's funeral probably I I think it was I want to say it was the next day it might have been two days later because all the management from Pan Am came out and because I knew the families involved and I had you know worked with them. When when you um training our our flight attendants in India was probably so much different than anyone any place else because we really got to know the families. They were so kind and generous and they would always invite you to their homes and we we real truly were like a family there.

SPEAKER_17 1:28:41

So you can imagine you know all the the trauma Diane what really stands out to you on your experience in Karachi Wow so many things.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:58

I think the most important thing that does stand out to me is like when these talks about the kindness of the people the professionalism of Roth and his staff they were eager to help and be there whatever was needed and the teamwork and the camaraderie it just really touched my heart to see you know Pan Am in action miles from home even you know no matter where we were Pan Am always got together and pulled through I think that was the most powerful moment that I had there. You know the people were just wonderful. You know it's a different world and um it just opened my eyes to so many things and it made me so proud. It was a very difficult time emotionally for all of us and so I think to answer your question Tom that had to be the most poignant moment in my memory.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:04

Wendy how about you well I have to say it was um Nirja's cremation ceremony normally in India I believe and I don't know if this is still true today but women were not invited to cremation ceremonies but because Nirja was such a national figure because she was a well-known model and her dad was a writer for the Hindustan Times and he was very also prominent it became you know a national event and I remember going to her home and in her they had her laid out oh my gosh she they was she was laid out in her kitchen all wrapped in this beautiful pink silk and she just looked like an angel and they were we all formed like a circle around her and everyone was chanting and it was so touching and that was the first time I met Nirja's brothers and the you know and the rest of her family and I had known I had gotten to know Nirja fairly well because we'd have these long nights you know when you're going from uh Bombay to Frankfurt there's a lot of downtime because passengers are sleeping the flight leaves in the you know wee hours of the morning and so I've got to know her whole story about how she was um she had an arranged marriage with some uh this fellow in the Gulf who turned out to be just horrific and the family was very abusive and she would tell me these horrific stories but not to sidetrack too much but it is pretty amazing how when her family finally said oh you need to come home I mean she lost like 10 pounds in like two weeks and um she was miserable and the family would be just so awful like if she was having you know her menstruation cycle they would send her to another wing of the house and not let her come out they were just very mean. And so when her family got wind of this and they she had a um a modeling assignment they let her you know that was the last time they let her just you know they said you obviously you can't go back and they were very supportive and so she still continued her modeling career but when Pan Ann came along this was like her refuge and obviously she was a an incredible recruit and very very charming and beautiful and they made her uh purser in training so I you know I really got to know her just those long hours sitting with sitting with her uh on those training flights and then at the at the cremation ceremony was um you know they it was this whole procession to the crematorium and there I just remember like thinking I it was like almost surreal to think that this was actually happening and um all the other flight attendants that were okay to attend that were you know physically okay they were there and that's when I remember Babu Pacino and Marty Shagru giving their talks and I there were other I think uh I have psych I remember making some calls with the us the Pan Am psychologist did we have such a thing? I pretty sure but um we I would just go on these calls to these the homes but at at the actual cremation it was there were beautiful speeches and things like that and then you know all of a sudden there was like this bolt of fire and that was it and it was just you know something just indescribable really after the cremation I went to lunch with the other flight attendants from the on the crew and what was really incredible they they told the whole story of what happened and I just want to say I want I think that they need to be acknowledged for the unbelievable incredible amount of bravery and hero and heroism of the whole the whole crew was just unbelievable and they of course were very traumatized about Nirja and they couldn't say enough wonderful things about her as well but when you hear the story firsthand it just makes you wonder like if you were in that position we we we had the same training I hope that I would have been able to do what these flight attendants did and remember they had only been flying six months so so new and they beyond rose to the occasion and I dread to think how much worse that hijacking could have been if not for their professionalism. And he just wanted to mention that.

SPEAKER_17 1:35:49

So Wendy you live in beautiful Southern California you by chance happened to meet someone else that was on that plane as a passenger. Yes would you like to tell us a little bit about that story?

SPEAKER_04 1:36:03

I sure would I love to tell you that story. So many years later I this was like something I kept a little diary but I actually lost it and and I always thought I have to write about this someday. And so 30 years later I actually wrote my book and then coincidentally 30 years later uh Bollywood did a movie about the hijacking called Nirja so one thing led to the other when the when the um movie was in the in the works somebody wrote on one of the Facebook pages they asked a question and somebody said oh you should talk to Wendy because she's just written this book so anyway we decided um because it was such a monumental event and the movie was coming out exactly 30 years later well I decided to do like a a memorial a commemoration dinner and it was September 5th and so I put a note on my Facebook page and invited Pan Am people or anyone that wanted to commemorate Flight 73 and the heroism and the passengers and the crew that lost their lives so I put this on Facebook and I get a message from somebody and she said my name I well I won't say her name just to keep her privacy but turns out there was a woman there is a woman who lives in Arcadia which is probably about 45 minutes from me who was an unaccompanied minor on flight 73 at the time oh and because of everything that happened from that hijacking in the book and the and the um movie I became Facebook friends with Anish Banat who was Nirja's brother and she was a mutual friend of Anish's as well and that's how she saw my post. So she starts telling me that she is was an unaccompanied minor on that flight I think she was like 12 or 14 at the time and now she was 45 well I guess I could do the math maybe she was 15 so she was 45 at the time when she wrote me and she was a pediatrician in Arcadia and she asked um you know if she could come to the dinner and I'm like are you kidding we would so love to have you and I said if you'd like to speak that would be incredible so she came and I have to tell you what she's had to say was so moving and so um mind-boggling for what she remembered as a 15 year old and she even brought she had her violin case that had bullet holes in it she had um cards with like with bullet holes in it it just brought the whole thing so real and her story was so moving and afterwards and uh she told me that and we're we're still very good friends and we've kind of made her up uh she's an honorary member of World Wings so she comes to the meetings actually she missed the one yesterday but she usually doesn't miss a meeting and um she's she said that because she was so young at the time and her parents she was an only child and her parents for whatever reason didn't want her to talk about it when she came home. They're like you're safe you're back so she never really felt like she processed everything that happened and she said you know after I gave that talk I'm actually sleeping better which is pretty amazing that 30 years later that all that I mean you can imagine how much trauma stays with you. Wow anyway so that was great I mean that was just one of the one of the main reasons that I'm so happy I actually wrote that book and also obviously getting to know Nirja's family much better reconnecting with them.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:12

Diane getting back to your story how did this experience in the aftermath of this terrorist attack change you oh boy wow I tell you what I aged I aged but I got wiser um from this experience I I kind of lost myself in this whole thing because you know you don't think about yourself at all I mean you just get so wrapped up in the experience of what happened and you know everyone one's experience there. I remember going back home and I don't even think I knew who I was it was just it it was like another world another lifetime another dimension uh I I really had a very hard time with that uh we didn't really have anybody to speak to after that but I was very fortunate to work for a woman uh Mrs. Evelyn Wheeler she was the director of um reservations and good friend of mine she says you know you need to go away so she took me we both went to St. Martin for the weekend just to get away I I needed to you know reconnect with who I was but it it stayed with me and I just felt like you know everybody is really the same in this world and we when we choose to to bond together and grow together you know we're all the same um I just felt like I matured so much and I and became so much wiser from this this whole experience.

SPEAKER_17 1:42:03

How about you Wendy you you have a little bit of a different uh story than Diane's in the sense that you worked closely and trained these flight attendants that were uh on this flight and you were friends with Nirdra one of the flight attendants uh that was was killed how did how did the September 5th hijacking terrorist event change you well I think it's like anything that um like when you're going through a trauma you don't realize what you're going through and I think I you know the aftermath of it in many ways was I mean how to put it because it was such a horrible horrible event but there were so many things about it that were also uplifting in a way to know that you know how how people can rise to an occasion and and uh you know like nobody knows what you're capable of until you're through it and I I had the benefit um not like Diane because she went home right away I stayed there for a while so the whole experience became much more real to me you know afterwards and after like I had I was able to process it there so that might have helped me a bit but I'll never forget and I I wish I could remember exactly which flight attendant said this but at that lunch uh we were talking about everything and one of the flight attendants said you know um whatever happened had to have happened because that was just their philosophy of life and they said it was a really good thing that the American flight attendants weren't on the flight because the hijackers were looking for Americans so they had the unbelievable magnanimity is that the right word yeah they were like to say that they were glad it was them and not us.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:18

And me that's just such a um you know what a beautiful I mean what a self I mean I like for somebody to say that and for them to and I think they all were very agreeable to that is was just so incredible to me that I hope yeah I mean I learned a lot from that that you know the just the graciousness of spirit and the way they put things in perspective in that regard was really to me incredible. It's just astounding in a way that and just g make gives you so much faith in the beauty of humanity that after all that they went through that they could say well they were glad it was them and not us.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:10

Wow I I didn't ever I have never heard your story Wendy that was that's pretty intense I it's like well you were in India and I was in the Karachi section um you see how every piece of this puzzle all fits together and you know it's become part of our lives and so glad I I did go through it.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:32

Not that it happened but I'm glad I did go through all this you don't want to say that it an experience like an experience like that was enriching or but it it but it it was it gave you so much faith in the um the human spirit that's all I could say yeah it just it on one level obviously it was like the worst thing I've ever experienced but I can't imagine for them how horrific.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:04

But yeah it gives you faith in humanity yeah exactly I just want to say that Pan M really went out of their way to make everything right for everyone I mean they paid for everything they they sent the people home first class they made sure that they the they wanted for nothing uh I just want to say too when I came back home I stayed friends with them and I actually went to the 15 year old niece's wedding later on how sweet yeah and a small world is uh later on their son not the son of the niece but Dr. Sanchala his son became a friend of my uh brother-in-law so it's a very small world oh to add to that um and next February I am going to the wedding of Nirja's cousin so Anish Anish her brother sadly passed away about a year ago but his wife I still talk to you know at least once a month at least and um their son is getting married in February so I'm I'm so honored to go to that wedding and I was so honored to um give that award for a beautiful the Pan Am do you know that there's an award called the Pan Am Nirjabanat Trust Award and it goes every year to a woman in the country of in India who's done something to a beyond above and beyond to help her fellow humanity and um I was really honored to give that award in 2019 and also to spend time with Anish and Shanti and the whole family.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:54

And um they both have been out uh Anish and Shanti have been to our our house a couple of times and they came on one of our World Wings cruises too.

SPEAKER_17 1:48:04

Oh nice it's amazing how such a tragic event I don't want to say has a a happy ending but you know there's positive things that come of these things.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:17

Absolutely you're so right always always yeah I learned that life was an ever delicately balanced process and how important it is to derive as much joy love and pleasure from each and every breath we take I mean we had I I learned to appreciate life so much more because you never know look at look at us today.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:38

And and so many things are out of our control and that I think of that one thing all the time that whatever happened had to have happened like there's you do everything you can do to make things go well but then so much is out of your control and and accepting and accepting that is really being able to accept that as a gift.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:03

Amen.

SPEAKER_17 1:49:04

Well thank you both for your time is there anything you'd like to add that we missed no just hope it never happens again thank you Tom thank you for having us allowing us to share our story because part of our lives well thank thank you both for coming on the program and uh to our listeners I work very closely with Wendy and Diane. The three of us serve on the board of the Pan Am Museum uh so the next time you're in New York City take a trip out to Long Island to see the Pan Am Museum within the cradle of aviation in Garden City, New York.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:44

And Tom, you are amazing. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_17 1:49:47

Thank you so much. Thank you. Take care.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:50

Bye bye now