Pan Am Flight 73: The 1986 Karachi Hijacking P3

Summary

Podcast Summary: What I Survived – Pan Am Flight 73: The 1986 Karachi Hijacking P3
Host: Jack Laurence
Date: March 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode of What I Survived delves deeper into the harrowing story of the 1986 hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan. The focus is on the real-time experience of passenger Michael Thexton, a British citizen, as the hijacking escalates and tensions mount. Through Michael’s firsthand account, the episode explores themes of fear, identity, heroism, and the psychological impacts of surviving terror. It vividly recreates the unfolding crisis, highlighting the excruciating decisions, desperate negotiations, and moments of humanity in the midst of chaos.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Passengers Under Siege

• Initial Announcements, Tensions, and Terror:
  • Passengers are forced to sit with their hands in the air, blinds are drawn and the cabin is sealed off ([03:30]).
  • Michael describes the paradox of “physical discomfort and being utterly terrified for an extended period,” a trauma not always outwardly visible ([03:30]).

    "It's quite hard to get across, really, how hard it is to go through some physical discomfort and be utterly terrified for an extended period." — Michael Thexton ([03:30])

  • Continuous, surreal “plinky plonky music” loops over the speakers, heightening the sense of unreality.
• Nationalities and the ‘Hierarchy of Risk’:
  • Passengers subtly form assumptions about who is most at risk based on nationality:

    "It was a cross section of nationalities, and everyone on that plane understood quietly that wherever you were from might suddenly matter more than who you were." — Narration ([05:45])

  • Americans are seen as the most likely targets, with Western Europeans next in line.
  • Michael internally confronts the “brutal” comfort of thinking others are ahead of him in the line of danger, while those around him make their own calculations ([03:30], [05:45]).
• The Calm Before the Storm:
  • Despite weapons and threats, up to this point, no clear acts of violence have occurred—maintaining an eerie and deceptive calm ([09:55]).

The Escalation

• First Act of Violence:
  • The hijackers demand to see Americans; Rajesh Kumar, an Indian-born American, is brought forward and executed after failed negotiations ([11:18]).
  • Michael notes the incident is not even known to those in economy:

    "From the outsider's point of view, that was the first evidence. Yes, these people are brutal murderers." — Michael Thexton ([12:50])

• Passport Collection and Hidden Heroism:
  • Passengers are ordered to raise and hand over their passports, with Michael reasoning through how best to keep himself safe ([14:03]).
  • Flight attendant “Sunshine” shows extraordinary bravery and cunning, secretly hiding true American passports and presenting the hijackers with only Indian and Pakistani American passports ([15:34]):

    "She had decided, he's going to kill an American, so I won't give her an American." — Michael Thexton ([15:34]) "Just the most astounding act of bravery that you can imagine." ([15:34])

  • Michael’s British passport is handed in by a fellow passenger, placing him unwittingly in the next tier of risk.

Michael Is Named

• Being Called Forward:
  • Michael is summoned by his legal names over the intercom, at first hoping for a coincidence or miracle ([18:49]):

    "I tried to persuade myself that maybe my parents had got a message through and, you know, on compassionate grounds, they were going to let me off the plane... Maybe they want a doctor. No, there's no connection between my T shirt and Michael John Thixton. That's. It's just ridiculous. They want to shoot me. And I just couldn't understand why." — Michael Thexton ([18:49])

  • Upon confirmation, Michael walks to the front of the plane, coaches himself through calmness, and introduces himself to the hijacker leader.
  • Humor and fear collide as the hijacker asks if he is a soldier and about his cameras, then incredulously asks, “Do you have a gun?” Michael, close to hysteria, bursts out laughing ([19:53]).

Negotiations and Near-Death

• Fateful Plea:
  • Michael pleads for his life, referencing his parents’ loss:

    "Please don't hurt me. My brother died in the mountains. My parents have no one else." — Michael Thexton ([22:53])

  • The leader coldly dismisses him as “one body.”
• Impromptu Negotiation:
  • Hostilities are temporarily stalled due to clever negotiation by Pan Am station chief Viraf Daroga, who bluffs about having a crew to prevent the plane from leaving ([24:08]).

    "I will do anything that is necessary to make sure that you do not fly this plane out of here." — Michael recounting Viraf Daroga’s stance ([24:33])

• Kneeling in the Shadow of Death:
  • Michael kneels where Rajesh Kumar was murdered, faced by a young, nervous guard he fears more than the leader ([25:32]-[29:34]).
• Mental and Emotional Reckoning:
  • Michael processes the likelihood of death, thinks of his parents’ grief, and reflects on forgiveness and stoicism, drawing on lessons from Sunday school and comic book heroes ([26:51], [27:46], [29:23]):

    "I just felt terribly sad for [my family]. I knew how awful it had been when. When Peter died. And I felt just sadness." ([26:51]) "I don't want to die angry with these people. I don't want to die frightened of these people... I determined I was going to offer to shake his hand and, and be, you know, it ridiculous about it, but..." ([27:46])

• Moments of Absurd Danger:
  • Michael observes one hijacker dangling a live hand grenade, chain-smoking and threatening doom ([30:18]).
  • A dramatic, almost darkly comic moment arises when the same hijacker triggers the plane’s smoke alarm in the bathroom, and a flight attendant calmly deals with him—another striking display of grace under pressure ([30:18]).

The Climax Approaches

• The Night Falls:
  • As night falls, power is suddenly cut on the plane. The episode ends with the start of rapid gunfire, presaging a violent climax ([32:39]):

    "I only remember bang. And thinking, is that hand grenade? Surely a hand grenade would be louder than that. And then unmistakably, automatic gunfire." — Michael Thexton ([32:53])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We carry our dead with us, not metaphorically, not poetically, but literally. In the weight we feel in our chest, in the way certain words catch in our throats, in how the world looks different after someone we love disappears from it.” — Narration ([01:38])
• “He pointed to these cine cameras still hanging around my neck. He said, what are these? I said, they're cameras. I've been making a film. They got taken off and tossed in one of the overhead lockers. And then he looked me in the eye and he said, do you have a gun? And I burst out laughing. I mean, I was probably close to fairly uncontrollable hysterics. I said, I haven't got a gun. You've got. You've got all the guns around here. And he said, kneel here.” — Michael Thexton ([19:53])
• “I felt just sadness, you know, I had spent the previous two months thinking about death, mainly Peter's death, but occasionally my own death... I went round in my mind and I said goodbye. Just like a roll call of all the people I thought I would miss and who might miss me.” — Michael Thexton ([26:51]-[27:46])
• On confronting the hijackers:

  "I determined I was going to offer to shake his hand and, and be, you know, it ridiculous about it, but saying, all right, you have your reasons, I don't agree with them, but make a clean job of it and I don't hate you. And, you know, I had no idea if I could have carried that through. Fortunately, I never found out." — Michael Thexton ([27:46])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:30] Facing terror: Hands in the air, psychological toll, and surreal surroundings
• [05:45] The hierarchy of risk among nationalities
• [11:18] First confirmed killing and its impact
• [15:34] Flight attendant Sunshine’s courageous deception
• [18:49] Michael is named and faces the reality of being selected
• [19:53] Michael’s interaction with the hijacker leader at the front
• [22:53] Final plea and moment of forced surrender
• [24:33] Station chief’s negotiation tactics
• [26:51] Michael’s thoughts on his family, death, and forgiveness
• [30:18] The hand grenade incident and flight attendant’s calm
• [32:39] The onset of chaos as the climax nears

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Episode Tone and Style

The episode is emotionally charged yet grounded in the matter-of-fact, often wry tone of Michael Thexton, moving between visceral fear, grim humor, and introspective reflection. Jack Laurence weaves in narrative context and historical analysis, creating a tense, immersive account that maintains profound empathy for the survivors.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

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[A]

And so the next announcement was. Ladies and gentlemen, will Mr. Michael John please come to the front of the plane.

[B]

We carry our dead with us, not metaphorically, not poetically, but literally. In the weight we feel in our chest, in the way certain words catch in our throats, in how the world looks different after someone we love disappears from it. When Michael Thexton boarded pan AM Flight 73, he was carrying his brother. He'd gone to Pakistan to stand where his brother had fallen and say his final goodbyes. And now he was going home, back to the parents who had already buried one son. Back to a family fractured by loss. He didn't know that in a few hours he would be on his knees at the front of that plane that hijackers would be hunting for Americans. And when a flight attendant managed to hide the American passports, when there were no more Americans left to find, Michael would become the next best thing. A British citizen. Close enough. And he would believe with absolute certainty that he was about to die. And he didn't know that the very grief he was carrying, that unbearable weight of his brother's death would become the only thing he had left to offer.

[A]

Moon in the sky I'm looking at the moon in the sky this shouldn't come as a surprise But I can't

[B]

sleep

[A]

War in my mind I'm trying to fight a war in my mind.

[B]

I don't know who's the winner tonight,

[A]

but it ain't me.

[B]

Chapter seven. Mr. Michael John, please come to the front of the plane.

[A]

But we sat there with our hands in the air, you know, and. And that's. That's hard. Afterwards, journalists said, you know, did they beat you? And you could obviously see that they. They were hoping for the answer yes. You know, they want something gory to put in the. Said, no. They made us sit with our hands in the air for, I don't know, half an hour, an hour. And that's not very exciting, but you can't. It's quite hard to get across, really, how hard it is to go through some physical discomfort and be utterly terrified for an extended period. That's really hard. And, you know, there'll be people who got off that plane who were in bits and couldn't really understand why, you know, almost it would be better for that person psychologically if they'd been beaten, because then everybody would know. This was really stuff. They told the people sitting by the windows to. To pull the blinds down. So we were then completely sealed off. In between these announcements, we just had the. The plinky plonky music that they used to play. I don't think they do anymore, but they used to play this music before you took off. And it's. It was on an endless loop. And, and all day, all day we had the entertainment going round and round and round. I think there must have been one or two other songs, but the entertainer is what I remember. It's completely surreal, this sort of silence, everybody looking around. I mean, I. I was looking around thinking, who. Who's in front of me? This is a very brutal thing to think, but it's very comforting. I. Sitting next to me were two people who looked to me to be North American. I was thinking, they look like they're in front of me on the floor beside me, a Pakistani man and his probably teenage daughter. He was whispering to her, this will be all right, Inshah. God willing. And of course, yeah, I was thinking, yes, God willing. But he's looking at me and thinking, he's in front of us. No, he's a Western. And the people, the Pakistanis and the Indians would know that the. The language that the hijackers were talking was Arabic. Americans, they looked absolutely sick because they couldn't see anybody who was in front of them.

[B]

As the situation unfolded, another reality began to settle over the cabin. This wasn't just a plane full of passengers anymore. It was a cross section of nationalities, and everyone on that plane understood quietly that wherever you were from might suddenly matter more than who you were. People began to look at one another differently. Indian and Pakistani passengers, many of whom understood the regional tensions at play in the language being spoken, felt a fragile sense of distance from the danger. They looked toward the European passengers, assuming that western nationals would draw attention first, while the European passengers, in turn, found their eyes drifting toward the Americans on board. Because in the mid-1980s, Americans were rarely neutral targets, at that time, the United States was deeply entangled in conflicts across the middle east and south Asia. It was backing military regimes, funding proxy wars, and exerting influence far beyond its borders. For militant groups, American citizens represented power, leverage and symbolism all at once. Targeting Americans wasn't just about violence. It was about visibility. American hostage guaranteed international attention. It guaranteed headlines. It guaranteed pressure. And everyone on that plane knew it. The American passengers knew it. Most of all, they understood there was no one ahead of them in the unspoken hierarchy of risk, no other nationality to deflect attention onto. As the cabin filled with uncertainty, they sat knowing that if the hijackers needed to make a point, it would likely be made through them. No one said it out loud, but the silence between the passengers told the story clearly enough.

[A]

Then we had announcements. Does anybody know how to operate the cockpit radio? And this was, well, confirmation that the pilot wasn't there. Couldn't understand why, but obviously the pilot could do that. And I remember feeling, you know, right there and then this huge feeling of relief. We haven't got a pilot. We're stuck on the ground. That's great. I realized at the time that that was a good thing.

[B]

Did you get any sense of feeling of how many there were? Did you think there was more than there were or less than there were, or did you know exactly how many there were?

[A]

One of the things I have thought of over the years is the fact that we talk about terrorism, and terrorism is this sort of global political problem, and terrorists do this and terrorists do that. But to be terrorized individually, it's a tremendously personal and physical and mental thing. We were terrorized. And, and, and I was deprived of the capacity for rational thought. I was so sort of enclosed in my little space, tucked up behind this seat, I. I could get no sort of sense of what was going on.

[B]

Obviously a high stress situation. Are you talking with any passengers, or you just. Dare I say a word? I'm just gonna sit here and say nothing.

[A]

People could whisper to each other. I Mean, I suppose that's the function of the blinky, blunky music. It sound like, you know, absolute deathly silence. And I whispered to this man, where are you from? And he said, north America. And that was all he was prepared to admit. But it was, yeah, it was very, very quiet, very calm. I think, you know, three quarters of the people on the plane or more were Indians and Pakistanis who thought, this is not our problem. And they were prepared to just sit there and wait. And we just, we just had to sit it out, hoping that there would be a resolution. I mean, yeah, really quite surprising how calm it was on that plane.

[B]

Michael believes that the main reason that everyone was seemingly so calm was because they hadn't actually really witnessed anything that would suggest that these men would be violent towards them. Yes, okay, they'd hijacked a plane, they had guns, but so far no one had been hit or abused. No one had so much as had a gun put to their heads and threatened with death. Although that was soon about to change as the leader of the group made his way down the aisle and began looking for an American.

[A]

The first couple of people, he said, are you American? And they wisely said, no. Are you American? No. Are you American? And this guy hesitated. He was a southern Indian, but he had a green card. And the leader just said, come with me, and took him forward to negotiate over him in the front doorway with the man outside who had a megabone. And he said, you know, unless you give us a crew, I'm gonna shoot this man. The poor man burst into tears and he pleaded for his life. The leader said, you know, you have 15 minutes to come back with something. The man on the tarmac turned away and the leader shot.

[B]

At approximately 10am Safrani went through the plane and arrived at the seat of Rajesh Kumar, a 29 year old Indian resident of Huntington Beach, California, who had recently been naturalized as American citizen. Sefrani ordered Kumar to come to the front of the aircraft and to kneel at the doorway, face the front with his hands behind his head. Sefrani negotiated with officials, in particular Viraf Daroga, the head of Pan Am's Pakistan operation, stating that if a crew was not put on that plane within 30 minutes, Kumar would be shot. Shortly after, Sefrani became impatient with the officials and grabbed Kumar, shooting him in the head in front of witnesses both on and off the plane. Safrani then heaved Kumar out of the door onto the ramp below. Pakistani personnel on the ramp reported that Kumar was still breathing when he was placed into an ambulance, but would be pronounced dead on the way to the hospital. Although the first passenger had been murdered in cold blood, and Michael and the other passengers at the back of the plane in economy never heard the gunshot. So at this stage are completely unaware of the real and serious danger that they are all in.

[A]

I was sitting there curled up in my aisle seat a few rows further back, much looking much more western than him and feeling quite safe, you know, this is okay. This is going all right. We could go home here. That, of course, from the outside, the outsider's point of view, that was the first evidence. Yes, these people are brutal murderers and we. But that changed the situation. From the outsider's point of view. The leader now decided that he wanted to get some Americans. So he told Sunshine, he said, go back and collect people's passports. So there was an announcement. Ladies and gentlemen, hold your passports above your head. They will be collected.

[B]

With no crew on board to fly the plane and no crew seemingly arriving, the hijackers were growing impatient and were going to keep killing passengers until the authorities gave in to their demands. And so the hunt was on again for more Americans on board the plane. Michael, being British, he believed that he would be safe from the hangman's noose, so to speak.

[A]

Two things. One is, it's a Pan Am plane. Surely there are Americans here, they'll be in front of us, you know, again, a brutal way of comforting yourself. But the other thing I was thinking was I better do what I'm told because if they search us later and my passport's in my pocket, then, you know, I'll be in real trouble. But, I mean, they can't search 380 people on the plane. This is just not thinking clearly at all. As long as a lot of people hand their passports in and you haven't, you're the invisible man. You know, it's, it's not that you've gone to the back of the queue, you're not even in the queue at all, because it doesn't work if they only got 10 passports. But in general, don't hand your passport in. That's the solution. And with my hand in the air with my passport, there was another announcement. Ladies and gentlemen, if your password is in the overhead lockers, don't get out of your seat. And the two Americans beside me just sort of groaned with relief because it gave them an excuse not to hand something in and may have been that their passports were up front in their hand luggage, but. And I thought, well, can I sort of do a little magic disappearing trick and make my passport go back down my sleeve somehow or something. But the Pakistani man in the aisle, he took it out of my hand and handed it to Sunshine as she was coming past with the bag. He obviously thought, that's a British one. Get that in the bag.

[B]

With the passports collected, Michael again still felt relatively calm. Again, the hijackers were specifically looking for Americans. However, there was something that he wasn't counting on.

[A]

And what I hadn't allowed for was Sunshine. Just an extraordinary woman, an extraordinarily brave, but also clever woman. She had decided, he's going to kill an American, so I won't give her an American. But then she, you know that that's brave because nobody could possibly criticize her for just doing her job or doing what she was told under threat of a gun. But then she thought, actually, he's not going to believe it if there are no American passports at all. He's not. He's going to know what I've done. So if a white person handed her an American passport, she got rid of it. She discarded it, put it in her pocket, gave it back them, but she kept in the pile passports with Indian names and faces, Pakistani names and faces. And she persuaded him that these people are really. They're not Westerners. These are American passport holders, but they're not what you want. And apparently she got back to the front of the plane and he said, sort out the Americans. So she went through the pile with one of her colleagues and there were three or four white American passports. And right under his nose, she got rid of them. She hid them under a seat. And just the most astounding act of bravery that you can imagine, once she persuaded him that all the Americans on the plane were not really Americans, promoted the British as the second most unpopular people for Arab terrorists. And so the next announcement was. Ladies and gentlemen, Lois comic of Joan. Please count up front and fly. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail], progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

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So that's my first two names. And I thought, well, that has to be me. It can't be a coincidence. But I had a moment before. I was going to wait until they got my name right. And I tried to. To persuade myself that maybe my parents had got a message through and, you know, on compassionate grounds, they were going to let me off the plane. My parents don't even know I'm on this plane. I'm not supposed to be on this plane. My t shirt says St. Mary's Hospital Medical School Mountaineering Expedition. Maybe they want a doctor. No, there's no connection between my T shirt and Michael John Thixton. That's. It's just ridiculous. They want to shoot me. And I just couldn't understand why.

[B]

Sitting in his chair in disbelief and trying to convince himself that the page was not for him, all of a sudden, the plane's announcement goes again. Would Michael Thexton please make his way to the front of the plane. He could no longer deny was him. And he had no choice but to get up and go.

[A]

So I stood up with what might well have been my last words, which were, for fuck's sake. And always thought that, you know, my mother might have said, did he have some last message for us? And, well, that. That would have been it. And I walked forward and presented myself to the man in the second doorway. I said, that's me. He waved me through. And by the front door, there is the leader. The man I'd seen come in through the front door at the beginning of the hijack. He's now taking his shirt off. Big muscly man, probably a bit over six feet tall. He's got this big Kalashnikov with two magazines Taped together with sticky brown tape. He's got my passport in his hand. There are four flight attendants sitting in the four doors, four seats immediately behind that. And as I walked forward, he said, you Michael John Dexton? And I said, yes, I am. He said, where are you from? I'm from London. He said, are you a soldier now? I mean, I suppose my passport photo is probably why they picked me. It looked clean cut, young. I said, no, I'm not a soldier. I'm a teacher. Now, I was explaining that, telling this story to a friend of mine the following week. And he said, he said, you really can't bear to admit to anybody that you're a chartered accountant, can you? And I said, I. I just thought in that moment, I don't really want to say I'm a capitalist imperialist running dog. I think I'll say teacher. That's a sort of more street credible occupation. I teach accountants. So I, you know, it's sort of. So I said, I'm a teacher. He pointed to these cine cameras still hanging around my neck. He said, what are these? I said, they're cameras. I've been making a film. They got taken off and tossed in one of the overhead lockers. And then he looked me in the eye and he said, do you have a gun? And I burst out laughing. I mean, I was probably close to fairly uncontrollable hysterics. I said, I haven't got a gun. You've got. You've got all the guns around here. And he said, kneel here.

[B]

Unbeknownst to Michael at the time, but he is about to kneel down at the door in the very same spot that only a matter of a few minutes earlier, Rajesh Kumar had been shot in the back of the head and thrown from the plane. He didn't know, but the crew and everyone placed at the front of the plane did know. And they watched on and waited to see what would happen next. Although Michael wasn't aware of the man who died before him, he did realize that he was in a grave situation, one where his life could be well and truly on the line. So before he kneels in the doorway, he makes one plea to the man with the gun.

[A]

And I said to him, I said, please don't hurt me. My brother died in the mountains. My parents have no one else. Please don't hurt me. And if he just. He just waved a hand as if to say, I'm busy. I've got no time for that. But he put his hand on my shoulder Made me kneel down behind the door. Now, these doors sort of open by tilting and there's a sort of crack of daylight and then they swing out the side and it was opened on the tilt. And so he stood, one of the flight attendants in that crack of daylight, and she spoke to the man on the tarmac and said, he said, tell him that if anyone comes near the plane, if any US Troops come near the plane, we will kill one body immediately. That's, that's what I was to him, one body. And tell him I have command. All my men are commandos and I have bombs on board. And this voice came back from the outside, tell him there's no need to hurt anyone. There's a member of the Pan Am ground crew on board who can operate the cockpit radio. And if you speak to us on the cockpit radio, we will withdraw everyone from around the plane. This was great. You know, this is a fantastic piece of negotiation because it worked.

[B]

You would think during such a high stakes hijacking, with so many lives at stake, there would be some sort of high level government official or trained police negotiator it and to speak with the hijackers. However, the man negotiating with the hijackers was the Pan Am station chief, Viraf Daroga. Again, luckily for those passengers on board, because Viraf Daroga was determined to keep the plane grounded.

[A]

He had been on a course run by his airline on how you deal with an airplane hijack. So he knew what to do and not what the, all of the, the Pakistani government officials wanted to do was stick a pilot on that plane and get it out of there, which is completely the wrong thing. Vera said, no, we will deal with it here. No, we will not give them a crew. I will do anything that is necessary to make sure that you do not fly this plane out of here. But he didn't want to identify his own employee. The negotiator should not be that involved. But now he knew that somebody was going to be shot. So he said, I've got this ground crew member on board who can operate the cockpit radio. So they made an announcement and this man came forward up the aisle.

[B]

And so a technician who had been on the plane appears and is taken upstairs to the cockpit with the leader of the group.

[A]

Another man came down and guarded me. Me. The door was shut and I was left there kneeling on the floor by a big pile of passports. And that was, that was where we had arrived at. And I had gone from thinking, people get off hijacks, probably someone will get shot. But it doesn't have to be me to. Well, it's going to be me. And I have to say, you know, 37 years later, I still can't see any other conclusion from this point. That is what's going to happen. It is extraordinary.

[B]

So in that moment, obviously, you know, I've spoken to a number of people now who've been through incredible things, and one thing we sort of always come back to is this feeling of guilt as opposed to fear or, you know, anything like that. It's more to do with guilt about the situation that they'd found themselves in. Was there any. Obviously, your parents had lost a son and now there's this distinct possibility, as you said, even 37 years later, you don't know there's no other way out of this. You are about to also now be deceased in that moment. Were you thinking about your parents and your family and, you know, here's another son now gonna be lost?

[A]

Yes. I mean, I don't think I would say it was guilt in that moment. I just felt terribly sad for them. I knew. I knew how awful it would be. You know, I knew how awful it had been when. When Peter died. And I felt just sadness, you know, I had spent the previous two months thinking about death, mainly Peter's death, but occasionally my own death, when doing things that I regarded as a bit excessively dangerous. But I just felt really sad for my family. And I whispered to one of the flight attendants, please tell my family that I love them very much. And she said, shh, don't worry, don't worry, nothing will happen or something. But I. I have never been able to watch Flight 93, which is, you know, the film about the 911 hijack, where, you know, that's the critical moment where the people are told to ring their loved ones and say goodbye.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And, you know, I. I know that that's what you would want to do and how awful it would be to do it. And the odd thing was that feeling that maybe she would be able to pass that message on, it made me feel slightly better. And I went round in my mind and I said goodbye. Just like a roll call of all the people I thought I would miss and who might miss me. And I got round eventually to a couple of people on the expedition that I had not really got on with. And I thought, well, there's that old saying, don't let the sun go down on your anger. And the odd thing was that then got to thinking about the hijackers and I thought, don't Let the sun go down on your anger. I don't want to die angry with these people. I don't want to die frightened of these people. And I mean, I think it's a combination of so many things. You know, I went to Sunday school in the, in the 60s. I read certain type of comic books where, where they were all sort of British heroes of the Second World War who had strong jaws and, you know, would laugh in the face of danger and so on. And I knew how a British gentleman was supposed to behave in this situation. And I was going to be stoic about it. And if the leader came down, he said, right, I'm going to shoot you now. I determined I was going to offer to shake his hand and, and be, you know, it ridiculous about it, but saying, all right, you have your reasons, I don't agree with them, but make a clean job of it and I don't hate you. And, you know, I had no idea if I could have carried that through. Fortunately, I never found out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

After I had determined that he didn't frighten me anymore.

[B]

So he says he no longer held any fear for the leader, the man he believed would almost certainly shoot him. However, he did fear the young man who was now guarding him, a boy of what he believes to be just 17, and who was very jumpy and aggressive and looked as though he would likely shoot Peter in the leg simply because he didn't know what to do with his gun. Michael says that at one point, as he's sitting there on the floor, the leader would take a seat with him in the flight attendants and start flirting with the women, telling them how brave they are and that he was going to fly them all to the beach in Cyprus. And while this was all going on, up the aisle walks one of the hijackers.

[A]

He had hand grenade, the pen wrapped around his finger and he was using. He was smoking chain smoking cigarette, and he had the pin of this hand grenade. He was holding the lever down with his thumb. And I have very little knowledge of hand grenades. This is certainly the closest I've ever been to one. But my understanding is if he lets go the lever, the thing, the spring flies out and the thing will go off and the pin can be put back, but only before the lever has been released. And he was apparently going around the plane just showing everybody that if they try anything with him, he's going to drop the hand grenade and we're all going to die. But he doesn't care. Anyway, he came forward. I. I think that he was One of the more sort of strict Muslims on the team. And he looked rather disapprovingly at the leader flirting with these women in their short skirts. And he looked at me and he showed me the hand grenade and I said, hand grenade, thank you. Turned around, he went back and he went into the toilet, which I could again see just, just behind where they were sitting. And I remember thinking, well, what's he going to do with that hand grenade while he's having a pee? And a moment later there was this alarm going off and, and the leader jumped to his feet the flight and said, don't worry, he's smoking in the toilet. It's the fire alarm. And she went back and she opened the door. Apparently he was sitting on the toilet holding a gun at her head. And she said, excuse me, reached up, turned this thing off. Fantastic grace under pressure. And of course, you know, it could have been a catastrophe. The man could have dropped his hand grenade. Abbas, the leader could have opened fire. And the negotiators in the, in the control tower, they're on tea break, they're thinking, oh, well, you know, nothing to do for. I mean, they're shooting the passengers. What, what has happened? Well, something unexpected has happened. I think now the unexpected thing would be a passenger having a go at the hijackers because of 9 11. And you would never be able to predict when that would happen. But that was that. That was probably the most dramatic thing that happened all day, apart from, of

[B]

course, how this life and death situation would come to its final conclusion without warning. Near 10pm, the power suddenly went out. The plane was thrown into darkness. The horrible ending was about to begin.

[A]

I only remember bang. And thinking, is that hand grenade? Surely a hand grenade would be louder than that. And then unmistakably, automatic gunfire.

[B]

Next time on what I Survived.

[A]

Moon in the sky. I'm looking at the moon in the sky. This shouldn't come as a surprise, but I can't sleep. War in my mind I'm trying to fight a war in my mind I don't know who's the winner tonight but. But it a me.

[B]

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