Pan Am Flight 073 Hijacking Incident, 1986

Pan Am Flight 73 was a Pan American World Airways flight from Bombay, India, to New York City, United States, with scheduled stops in Karachi, Pakistan, and Frankfurt, West Germany. On September 5, 1986, the Boeing 747-121 serving the flight was hijacked while on the ground at Karachi by four armed Palestinian terrorists of the Abu Nidal Organization. The aircraft, with 360 passengers on board, had just arrived from Bombay. A grand jury later concluded that the militants were planning to use the hijacked airliner to pick up Palestinian prisoners in both Cyprus and Israel. More than twenty passengers were killed during the hijacking, including nationals from India, the United States, Pakistan, and Mexico. All the hijackers were arrested and sentenced to death in Pakistan. However, the sentences were later commuted to life in prison. Senior Purser Neerja Bhanot was shot dead and posthumously received four awards: India's highest peacetime award for bravery, the Ashok Chakra Award, the United States Special Courage award, and two awards from Pakistan, which were Tamgha-e-Pakistan, the fourth highest civil award from Pakistan for her efforts to save passengers' lives, and the Nishan-e-Pakistan.