Nirya Bganot: death in the name of the lives of passengers. Neerja Bhanot - flight attendant who saved hundreds of lives Indian flight attendant killed by terrorists

This was the first case of capture of such a scale in the USSR. passenger plane(hijacking). With him, in essence, began a long-term series of similar tragedies that splattered the skies of the whole world with the blood of innocent people.

And it all started like this.

The An-24 took off from the Batumi airfield on October 15, 1970 at 12:30 p.m. Heading to Sukhumi. There were 46 passengers and 5 crew members on board the plane. Flight time according to schedule is 25-30 minutes.

But life has ruined both the schedule and the schedule.

At the 4th minute of the flight, the plane sharply deviated from its course. The radio operators asked for the board, but there was no response. Communication with the control tower was interrupted. The plane was leaving towards nearby Turkey.

Military and rescue boats went out to sea. Their captains received orders: to proceed at full speed to the site of a possible disaster.

The board did not respond to any of the requests. A few more minutes - and the An-24 left air space THE USSR. And in the sky above the Turkish coastal airfield of Trabzon, two rockets flashed - red, then green. It was a signal emergency landing. The plane touched the concrete pier of a foreign air harbor. Telegraph agencies around the world immediately reported: a Soviet passenger plane had been hijacked. The flight attendant was killed and some were wounded. All.

BLACK ENVELOPE

I was flying to the scene of the emergency a few hours later. I flew without knowing either the circumstances of the drama or the name of the murdered flight attendant. Everything had to be found out on the spot.

Today, 45 years later, I intend to again - at least briefly - outline the events of those days and again talk about Nadya Kurchenko, her courage and her heroism. To talk about the stunning reaction of millions of people of the so-called stagnant time to the sacrifice, courage, courage of man. To tell about this, first of all, to people of the new generation, the new computer consciousness, to tell how it was, because my generation remembers and knows this story, and most importantly - Nadya Kurchenko - and without reminders. And it would be useful for young people to know why many streets, schools, Mountain peaks and even the plane bears her name.

After takeoff, greetings and instructions to passengers, the flight attendant returned to her work area, a narrow compartment. She opened a bottle of Borjomi and, letting the water shoot out sparkling tiny cannonballs, filled four plastic cups for the crew. Having placed them on the tray, she entered the cabin.

The crew was always glad to have a beautiful, young, extremely friendly girl in the cockpit. She probably felt this attitude towards herself and, of course, she was happy too. Perhaps, even in this dying hour, she thought with warmth and gratitude about each of these guys, who easily accepted her into their professional and friendly circle. They treated her like a little sister, with care and trust.

Of course, Nadya was in a wonderful mood - everyone who saw her in the last minutes of her pure, happy life affirmed.

After giving the crew a drink, she returned to her compartment. At that moment the bell rang: one of the passengers called the flight attendant. She came up. The passenger said:

Tell it urgently to the commander,” and handed her some kind of envelope.

"ATTACK! HE'S ARMED!"

Nadya took the envelope. Their gazes must have met. She was probably surprised by the tone in which these words were spoken. But she didn’t bother to find out anything, but stepped towards the luggage compartment door - then there was the pilot’s cabin door. Probably, Nadya's feelings were written on her face - most likely. And the sensitivity of the wolf, alas, surpasses any other. And, probably, it was precisely thanks to this sensitivity that the terrorist saw hostility, subconscious suspicion, a shadow of danger in Nadya’s eyes. This was enough for the sick imagination to sound the alarm: failure, verdict, exposure. His self-control failed: he literally ejected from his chair and rushed after Nadya.

She only managed to take a step towards the pilot's cabin when he opened the door to her compartment, which she had just closed.

You can't go here! - she screamed.

But he approached like the shadow of an animal. She realized: there was an enemy in front of her. The next second, he also realized: she would ruin all plans.

Nadya screamed again:

Return to your seat. You can't go here!

But he took out a weapon - his nerves burned to the ground. Nadya did not know his intentions. But I understood: he is absolutely dangerous. Dangerous for the crew, dangerous for the passengers.

She saw the revolver clearly.

Opening the cockpit, she shouted to the crew with all her might:

Attack! He's armed!

And at the same moment, slamming the cabin door, she turned to face the bandit, furious with this course of affairs, and prepared to attack. He, like the crew members, heard her words - without a doubt.

What was left to do? Nadya made a decision: not to let the attacker into the cockpit at any cost. Any!

BATTLE AT THE LAST FRONTIER

He could have been a maniac and shot the crew. It could have killed the crew and passengers. He could... She didn't know his actions, his intentions. And he knew: by jumping towards her, he tried to knock her off her feet. Pressing her hands against the wall, Nadya held on and continued to resist.

The first bullet hit her in the thigh. She pressed herself even tighter against the pilot's door. The terrorist tried to squeeze her throat. Nadya - knock the weapon out of his right hand. A stray bullet hit the ceiling. Nadya fought back with her feet, hands, even her head.

The crew assessed the situation instantly. The commander abruptly interrupted the right turn in which they were at the moment of the attack, and immediately rolled the roaring car to the left, and then to the right. The next second, the plane went steeply upward: the pilots tried to knock down the attacker, believing that he had little experience in this matter, but Nadya would hold on.

The passengers were still wearing belts - after all, the display did not go out, the plane was just gaining altitude.

The young man opened his gray cloak, and the passengers saw grenades - they were tied to his belt. “This is for you!” he shouted. “If anyone else gets up, we’ll split the plane!”

In the cabin, seeing a passenger rushing to the cabin and hearing the first shot, several people instantly unfastened their seat belts and jumped out of their seats. Two of them were closest to the place where the criminal was sitting, and were the first to sense trouble. Galina Kiryak and Aslan Kayshanba, however, did not have time to take a step: they were ahead of them by the one who was sitting next to the one who had fled into the cabin. The young bandit - and he was much younger than the first, for they turned out to be father and son - pulled out a sawn-off shotgun and fired along the cabin. The bullet whistled over the heads of the shocked passengers.

Don `t move! - he yelled. - Do not move!

The pilots began to throw the plane from one position to another with even greater sharpness. The young man fired again. The bullet pierced the fuselage skin and came out right through. Depressurization aircraft not yet threatening - the height was insignificant.

The moment after the second shot, the young man opened his gray cloak and people saw grenades - they were tied to his belt.

This is for you! - he shouted. “If anyone else gets up, we’ll split the plane!”

It was obvious that this was not an empty threat - if they failed, they had nothing to lose.

Meanwhile, despite the evolution of the plane, the elder remained on his feet and with bestial fury tried to tear Nadya away from the door of the pilot's cabin. He needed a commander. He needed a crew. He needed a plane.

Struck by Nadya’s incredible resistance, enraged by his own powerlessness to cope with the wounded, bloodied, fragile girl, he, without aiming, without thinking for a second, fired at point-blank range and, throwing the desperate defender of the crew and passengers into the corner of a narrow passage, burst into the cabin. Behind him is his geek with a sawed-off shotgun.

To Turkey! To Turkey! Return to the Soviet shore - we'll blow up the plane!

42 BULLETS ON THE CREW

Another bullet pierced the back of the commander, Grigory Chakhrakiy. In order to keep at least a little blood in his body, so as not to lose consciousness and not drop the steering wheel from his hands, Grigory pressed himself against the back of the commander's chair with all his might. The next shot - the bullet paralyzes the right arm of navigator Valery Fadeev and hits the chest. There is a communication microphone in his hand, Fadeev loses consciousness, no one can release his hand with the microphone - each of the crew members is already wounded, Nadya is dead.

There is no way out: the plane must not fall into the sea - there are 46 passengers on board, including children. The co-pilot sees that the commander is still losing consciousness. Shavidze takes control - he drives the car as if in a nightmare: in a cabin drenched in the blood of his friends, among screaming criminals, under the threat of a sawn-off shotgun and a revolver, under the threat of grenades.

When a coastal Turkish airfield appears in the gray dream of reality, it fires emergency flares into the sky. And the plane, pierced by forty-two bullets, falls to someone else's hard ground...

A LOOK THROUGH THE YEARS

WHILE HOPE LIVES...

For courage and heroism, Nadezhda Kurchenko was awarded the Military Order of the Red Banner; a passenger plane, an asteroid, schools, streets, and so on were named after Nadya. But it should be said, apparently, about something else.

The scale of government and public actions related to the unprecedented event was enormous. Members of the State Commission and the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs negotiated with the Turkish authorities for several days in a row without a single break.

It was necessary to: allocate an air corridor for the return of the hijacked plane; air corridor to transport wounded crew members and those passengers who needed urgent treatment from Trabzon hospitals medical care; of course, those who were not physically harmed, but found themselves in a foreign land not of their own free will; an air corridor was required for a special flight from Trabzon to Sukhumi with Nadya’s body. Her mother was already flying to Sukhumi from Udmurtia.

There were a lot of worries. But all these dramatic actions could not smooth out the acute pain of loss - Nadya remained at the center of any conversation across the vast country, television and radio programs, and newspapers.

Air Marshal, Minister of civil aviation USSR Boris Pavlovich Bugaev. Twice - due to circumstances - I spoke on the phone with the minister, who listened to wishes, advice, requests to meet Nadya's mother in Sukhumi, to decide on the place of the funeral, and other actions. Could there be something similar in our hectic days - the concern of the minister of a superpower about the fate of the murdered flight attendant of a tiny run-of-the-mill flight?

No. It couldn't. In any case, I don’t believe in it.

In Komsomolskaya Pravda, where I worked then (and was the first and only journalist from Moscow at the scene of the tragedy), in the first two weeks alone, even after the reports distorted by censorship, over 12 thousand letters and telegrams arrived from shocked readers mourning Nadya and admiring her courage !

There was such a country. And there were such people. Is this possible today?

On the day of Nadya’s funeral, over her coffin littered with flowers and over the heads of thousands of people walking behind her coffin through the streets of the city, all the planes leaving for the flight swayed their wings, showing tribute to their protector, their young colleague, their heroine. On each of these planes, flight attendants tearfully told their passengers:

Look down while the city is visible. These are people saying goodbye to our friend. With our Nadya.

Do you believe that we are still the same?

Nadya’s mother, Henrietta Ivanovna, with whom I stood at Nadya’s coffin and who dryly and lifelessly repeated, looking at her daughter’s strikingly beautiful face: “Now you don’t laugh with me, you’re serious with me,” handed me notes, notebooks, and Nadya’s papers. Among them, I found a phrase from 9th grade student Nadezhda Kurchenko: “I want to be a worthy daughter of the Motherland and am ready to give my life for it, if necessary.”

I absolutely believe in these words, familiar to the ear, but written by Nadya’s hand and heart.

PAY

The bandits punished themselves

The terrorists turned out to be 46-year-old Lithuanian Pranas Brazinskas (pictured on the right), a former store manager from Vilnius, and his 13-year-old son Algirdas (left). The Turkish authorities refused to extradite the criminals to the USSR and convicted them themselves. The eldest received eight years, the youngest - two. After some time, both were released under an amnesty, and the bandits moved to Venezuela, and from there to the United States: they got off a plane in New York heading to Canada. The Lithuanian diaspora obtained permission to leave them in the country.

The Brazinskas settled in Santa Monica, California. In February 2002, 77-year-old Pranas quarreled with his son, for which he received several fatal blows with a bat. Algirdas was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

1973 The ballad “My Clear Little Star” flew around the Soviet Union like a dove. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind: the song was dedicated to the young flight attendant who remained in the sky forever. Killed three weeks before the wedding. And it is performed on behalf of her groom. The sad story is still being replicated on the Internet. However, this is just a beautiful legend...

Composer Vladimir Semenov: “Many people sang and continue to sing this song. But it seems to me that its best performer was and remains Sasha Losev...” Soloist of a student amateur ensemble, winner of a regional competition, where the main prize is the recording of his own record at the Melodiya company ...

The tragic aura that the song acquired, 22 years later, covered its first performer with a black cloud. Shortly before his departure, Losev admitted that before he sang “My Clear Little Star” with one subtext, now - in memory of his early deceased son. And he summed it up sadly: “Inexplicably, the main song in the program became the main song in life.”

“Zvezdochka” became the main song in the life of composer Vladimir Semyonov. He was already 35 years old. Behind me is Astrakhan, an automobile and road technical school, a homemade electric guitar and hundreds of kilometers on a tattered bus traveling with concert teams of the Astrakhan Philharmonic...

“Of course, I remember the story of the plane hijacking, then they wrote a lot about Nadya’s feat,” says Semenov. “But, to be honest, I didn’t think about anything like that when I took out a small collection of poems from the store shelf by the Vologda poetess Olga Fokina. Literally 12- 13 pages printed on thin newsprint. I started leafing through them and suddenly came across the words “People have different songs, but mine is the same for centuries.”

A song was born that Semenov showed to his friend, composer Sergei Dyachkov. He brought Semenov to Stas Namin, who led the vocal and instrumental ensemble. We recorded a small record consisting of three compositions - Oscar Feltsman's song "Flowers Have Eyes", Sergei Dyachkov's song "Don't" and Vladimir Semyonov's ballad "My Clear Star". It spread across the country with a circulation of almost 7 million copies!

“After all the hassle - rehearsals, recordings - I went with my wife to relax in Sochi,” recalls composer Vladimir Semenov today. “I was lying on the sand and suddenly I heard something familiar - somewhere in the distance a motor ship was sailing, a huge, foreign tourist one, and from there I could hear Sasha Losev's voice: “People have different songs, but mine is one for centuries!”

Vologda poetess Olga Fokina wrote these lines several years before the tragedy on board the An-24. Lines about your own, very personal things. Her famous fellow countryman, writer Fyodor Abramov said that Olga “is very close to life, her poems are always not fiction, not letters, not words - poems are generated by life itself... they captivate, enchant you with sincerity, purity and spontaneity of feelings.” .

All the things that Nadya Kurchenko was remembered for and will forever remain in the people’s memory.

), which, saving the passengers of flight 73 of the company Pan Am, died at the hands of terrorists who hijacked a plane on September 5, 1986. Became the youngest person to be awarded the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest award for bravery in Peaceful time(awarded posthumously).

Neerja Bhanot (Lado)
नीरजा भनोट

Date of Birth	September 7(1963-09-07 )
Place of Birth	Chandigarh, India
Date of death	September 5(1986-09-05 ) (22 years old)
A place of death	Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
A country
Occupation	stewardess
Father	Harish Bhanot
Mother	Rama Bhanot
Awards and prizes

Biography

Neerja Bhanot was born on September 7, 1963 in Chandigarh. Her father was Mumbai-based journalist Harisha and mother Rama Bhanot.

Neerja graduated high school Sacred Heart. Then she studied in Mumbai. She worked as a model for some time. She was noticed as soon as she turned sixteen. She has been a spokesperson for many famous brands.

Family

Nirja Bhanot was survived by two siblings - Akhil ( Akhil) and Anish ( Aneesh).

Her father, Harish Bhanot, worked as a journalist for the Hindustan Times newspaper for more than 30 years; he passed away on 1 January 2008 at the age of 86 in Chandigarh.

Memory

Neerja Bhanot's feat received international recognition. In India, she was posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra Order and became the youngest recipient of this order - the most prestigious of the Indian state awards, awarded for courage and heroism in peacetime.

Her devotion to the passengers of the plane who found themselves in terrible trouble will forever remain the highest manifestation best qualities human spirit

Original text (English)
Her loyalties to the passengers of the aircraft in distress will forever be a lasting tribute to the finest qualities of the human spirit

In 2004, India Post (English) Russian issued a postage stamp in her memory

Very often, the work of a flight attendant is too romanticized: distant countries, meeting people, good mood, perfect uniform. But not everyone will think that this profession is also dangerous. And the point is not that you have to fly above the clouds. Most often, the danger comes from passengers. ABOUT heroic flight attendants who managed not to get confused in a difficult situation - later in the review.

On October 15, 1970, 19-year-old flight attendant Nadezhda Kurchenko paid with her life while trying to prevent terrorists from hijacking a plane. The An-24 plane, in which Nadezhda was, was flying from Batumi to Sukhumi. The entire flight was supposed to take only half an hour. At the 5th minute after takeoff, one of the passengers called the flight attendant to his place, put an envelope in her hand and demanded that she take it to the commander. Either Nadya looked at him with hostility, or the man did not have enough restraint, but after a couple of seconds he rushed after her. The girl realized that something was wrong and immediately slammed the door to the pilots' cabin, blocking the way.

The terrorist did not expect such a rebuff and tried to push the young conductor away, but she began to desperately resist. At the same time, the commander realized that there was a fight going on behind the door and began to sharply turn the plane left, right, up, hoping to knock the criminal off his feet (the passengers were still wearing seat belts at that time). The terrorist resisted and shot Nadezhda in the thigh, but the fragile girl continued to resist. Then he shot point blank.

When the shots rang out, two more terrorists jumped out of their chairs. They, without ceremony, walked over the body of the murdered flight attendant and entered the cockpit, demanding to go to Turkey and threatening to blow up the plane. Most of the crew were wounded. The commander managed to land the plane at Trabzon airfield in Turkey, having managed to transmit an SOS signal. The terrorists had to surrender. For courage and heroism, Nadezhda Kurchenko was posthumously awarded the Military Order of the Red Banner.

23-year-old Indian flight attendant Nirja (Neerja) Bganot sacrificed her life to save 360 passengers. This happened in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The PAN AM 73 plane was hijacked by radical Islamists. The flight attendant was not taken aback and managed to immediately warn the pilots. They evacuated through the escape hatch so the plane could not be lifted into the air.
Nirya herself remained in the cabin of the plane. The terrorists demanded to bring the passports of all passengers in order to execute the Americans. The brave flight attendant hid the documents of people who had US citizenship in the garbage chute and under the seats. Thanks to this, they remained alive.

When the Pakistani police began the assault, and the terrorists began to fire back, Nirya managed to independently evacuate the passengers from the plane. She already wanted to get out herself, but at the last moment she saw three more children in the cabin, hiding under the seats. While the flight attendant was taking the children out, the Islamists noticed them and started shooting. The girl covered the kids with herself and received mortal wounds. With the last of her strength, she got the children out of the plane and then died.

Victoria Zilberstein, like many girls, dreamed of working as a flight attendant. She was attracted by distant countries and beautiful uniforms. Her wish came true. At the time of the disaster, the girl had already been working as a flight attendant for two years. That day, Victoria was on a plane en route to Irkutsk. Before boarding, everything happened as usual, standard phrases were heard: “Dear passengers, please fasten your seat belts and take an upright position.”

When taxiing began (maneuvering an airliner moving around the airfield using engine thrust), Victoria noticed that the plane did not stop for a long time. Suddenly she felt a jolt, the lights went out in the cabin and smoke appeared. At that moment, the flight attendant had only one thought: she needed to save the passengers. Victoria immediately remembered the words of the instructor: “Girls, in case of an accident, the main thing is to make a hole in the plane.” The flight attendant pulled the emergency exit lever and opened the hatch. People got out, sliding down the tilted wing, Victoria let them go ahead, choking on the acrid smoke. Then she finally came out on her own.

The flight attendant was in shock. Only later in the Victoria hospital they said that she had a concussion, the plane exploded and, only thanks to the flight attendant, most of the passengers managed to escape.

49-year-old flight attendant Sheila Frederick managed to save the girl from sexual slavery. That flight began as usual: passengers took their seats and the flight attendants carried out their duties. But one couple caught Sheila's attention again and again. It seemed that the man was flying with his daughter, only he looked quite decent, and the girl’s clothes looked like rags. And that frightened look too.

Sheila invited the girl to take her to the toilet. There she left a note asking if the passenger needed help. She answered in the affirmative. When the plane came in to land, the police were already waiting at the ramp. It turned out that the girl was indeed taken against her will to be sent into sexual slavery.

Flight attendants can help even when they are on the ground and not in the air. Israeli flight attendants Nitzan Rabinovich and Mor Levi saved an 80-year-old man from death. That day the girls were at Beijing airport. They were already heading to their flight when Nitzan suddenly noticed that she had lost her phone. She asked her friend to return to the metro station and look for him.

When the flight attendants returned to the station, they saw a woman screaming over an unconscious man. Nitzan and Mor tried to feel for a pulse, but there was none. Immediately, the flight attendants began to perform artificial respiration on the person lying down, as they were taught in first aid courses. Mor ordered people to run to the airport and bring a defibrillator, and she called an ambulance. The girls made it on time. They started the Chinese man’s heart, and when the doctors arrived, the man even opened his eyes slightly.

It took the flight attendants 30 minutes to save the Chinese. They ran to their flight, made it in time and, as if nothing had happened, smiled and seated the passengers in their seats. Only after takeoff did the girls allow themselves to cry. By the way, the phone was also found.

Neerja's interrupted flight.

On September 5, 1986, Pan American World Airways flight attendant Neerja Bhanot was killed by terrorists. In two days she would have turned 23 years old.

Neerja Bhanot was born on September 7, 1963 in Chandigarh. Her father was Mumbai-based journalist Harisha and her mother Rama Bhanot. Neerja completed her high school education and studied in Mumbai. For a while beautiful girl worked as a model and represented many famous brands. In March 1985, Nirja was almost forcibly married by agreement between her parents, but the husband was dissatisfied with the dowry and returned his wife two months later. If he had not returned her, Neerja's fate would have been different. After a failed marriage, Neerja decided to become a flight attendant at Pan American, successfully passed the pre-selection and courses, and then got the job. The girl dreamed of heaven since childhood, but was afraid to tell her parents about it.

Neerja at work

She was the senior flight attendant on flight PA 7 when four heavily armed terrorists dressed as airport staff stormed the plane and took passengers and crew hostage. This happened at 5 o'clock in the morning, the plane landed in the Pakistani city of Karachi. There were three crew members in the cockpit: a pilot, a co-pilot and a flight engineer. Neerja informed them in time about the hijacking of the plane, and they were all able to jump out and run away when the plane was on the concrete area in front of the hangar. Neerja turned out to be the senior-most among the remaining crew members on board and took command of the plane.

The terrorists who hijacked the plane were members of the terrorist Abu Nidal Organization, which received support from the Libyan authorities. First they shot the passengers who identified themselves as Americans. The terrorists then ordered Neerja to collect the passports of all the passengers to identify the US citizens among them. Neerja discreetly hid the documents of the surviving passengers with American citizenship. For another 17 hours, the flight attendant openly fooled the terrorists, which is why they were unable to distinguish Americans from non-Americans.

Still from the film "Neerja"

When the Pakistani police began to storm the plane, the terrorists began shooting and detonating grenades, Neerja evacuated all the passengers with almost no help. The girl managed to open the emergency door and throw out the ramp, thanks to which many hostages managed to escape from the hijacked plane. Before being the last one to evacuate, she looked around again and found three children still hiding behind the seats. While the children were getting out, the terrorists noticed the little fugitives and opened fire on them. Neerja covered the children with her body and was mortally wounded. Despite her wounds, she managed to evacuate the children... Subsequently, one of the boys she saved became a pilot.

23-year-old Neerja Bhanot became the youngest person to be awarded the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest award for bravery in peacetime. Posthumously.

In 2004, India Post released a postage stamp in her memory.

Neerja Bhanot's parents received insurance payments and compensation from Pan American, and established a charitable trust in the name of their deceased daughter, the Neerja Bhanot Pan Am Trust. This trust awards two prizes of Rs 1.5 million each year: one to an aircraft crew member who performed his duty valiantly in a difficult situation, and the other to an Indian woman who herself had serious problems due to dowry, abandonment or other social injustice. , and then began to help other women who found themselves in similar trouble. In addition to the monetary reward, the laureate is awarded memorial sign, and his name is included in the premium list.

In 2005, Neerja Bhanot was posthumously awarded the American Justice for Crimes Award. Neerja's brother, Anish, came to Washington to receive the award at the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office as part of its annual Criminal Law Week.

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Neerja's feat, a film of the same name was released. Neerja was played by the popular Indian actress and model Sonam Kapoor.

The terrible incident happened 32 years ago. On September 5, in one of the cities of Pakistan, terrorists hijacked a passenger plane. If it were not for Neerja Bhanot, who was a flight attendant on that ill-fated plane, then all the passengers could have become victims.
Neerja gave her life so that other people would not die at the hands of terrorists.

The girl has a completely ordinary story: she lived with her parents, graduated from school and moved to Mumbai. At first, the flight attendant tried herself in the modeling business and performed at shows, but soon the desire to be a model disappeared. A year before the terrible tragedy, Bhanot’s parents gave her in marriage, but her husband was dissatisfied with his daughter-in-law and the couple soon separated. After some time, Neerja decided to become an air hostess. The girl was interviewed at Pan American.

On September 5 she was the senior flight attendant on board. In the morning the plane landed in the city of Karachi. There the ship was hijacked by radical Islamists. But Neerja was able to warn the pilots about what had happened, and they safely left the ship through the emergency exit.

While on the plane, the terrorists killed everyone who was an American citizen. After that, they forced all the people to collect documents in order to kill the rest of the United States. Our heroine managed to put the documents in the trash container. That is why the Islamists did not kill a single person anymore, since it was impossible to identify US citizens without passports.

When the police stormed the ship, Neerja Bhanot reacted instantly and took the passengers out through the emergency exit. But at the very end of the evacuation, she noticed several children sitting in fear behind the seats of the plane.

The terrorists saw the girl running to save the children and started shooting. The flight attendant managed to cover the children with her body, but died. All passengers were evacuated thanks to Neerja.

Note! One of the rescued kids has now become a pilot.

As you know, the girl was posthumously awarded the most significant award for the Indian people. Neerja was given the Ashoka Chakra Order. Of course, this medal for courage will not bring the girl back to life, but it is a tribute to the man who sacrificed himself to save the passengers. Many passengers came to the girl’s grave more than once to honor her memory and once again say “Thank you” for that incredible deed.

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