I meant to get to this on the 20th, but all the excitement from Infrastructure Week got me carried away with other matters.
Thirty-three years and three days ago, Neerja Bhanot, a 23 year old flight attendant, risked and ultimately sacrificed her life protecting the passengers of Pan Am 73, during an attempted and thwarted highjacking by Islamic extremists before the plane could take off from Karachi, Pakistan.
From the Pan Am Historical Foundation’s tribute page:
Remembering Neerja Bhanot on hijacked Pan Am Flight 73. She died heroically, saving Pan Am passengers from terrorists on Sept. 5, 1986.
Neerja Bhanot was senior flight purser on the Empress of the Seas, a Pan Am 747 hijacked at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi by four armed men from the Abu Nidal organization en route to Frankfurt and New York. During a 17-hour ordeal, she helped the three-member cockpit crew escape in order to ground the plane so it could not be flown. Bhanot hid passports of passengers so the hijackers could not determine passenger nationalities. She also managed to open the emergency door assisting a number of passengers to escape from the plane. As the hijackers opened fire on passengers and crew, Neerja Bhanot lost her life shielding three children from bullets.
In 1987, she became the youngest and first woman recipient of the Ashoka Chakra award, India’s highest civilian decoration for bravery.
In 2004, the Indian Postal Service issued a stamp in her honor* (http://www.wnsstamps.post/en/stamps/IN036.04)
In 2006 she was awarded the 2006 Special Courage Award by the US Department of Justice. (Read more at Times of India.)
In 2016 a film entitled “Neerja” was released, portraying her herioc life.
Today the Neerja Bhanot Pan Am Trust continues to do great work in memory of this amazing woman. You can learn about the Neerja Awards and the trust at https://www.facebook.com/The-Neerja-Bhanot-Page-109643142413675/
Here’s some more details about her in an excellent Twitter thread:
2) This week in September 1986, Flight Attendant Neerja Bhanot, 23 of Chandigarh, India, was shot dead while shielding three children on the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73.
— Terry (@TerranceCreamer) September 20, 2019
4) When the terrorists demanded to know who the Americans were on the flight so they could execute them, Bhanot gathered all the passports and hid those belonging to Americans under seat cushions.
— Terry (@TerranceCreamer) September 20, 2019
6) She was one of the last people onboard and found three children still hiding. As Neerja led the children to safety, the surviving terrorists spotted the children and opened fire on them. Neerja jumped in the way of the bullets and was mortally wounded.
— Terry (@TerranceCreamer) September 20, 2019
8) The 2016 Indian Hindu-language biographical thriller drama, Neerja, is about her life.
— Terry (@TerranceCreamer) September 20, 2019
The world could use more Neerja Bhanots!
Open thread.