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Pan Am Flight 73 was a flight that was hijacked on September 5, 1986 by four armed men of the Abu Nidal organization. The Boeing 747 aircraft departing from Karachi International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan en route to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, New York carried some 379 people, including several dozen Americans.
The incident began as passengers were boarding the aircraft for a flight that had originated in Bombay, India, and was scheduled to fly to Frankfurt, Germany, en route to New York. On the day of the hijacking, the hijackers were dressed as Karachi airport security guards and armed with assault rifles, pistols, grenades and plastic explosive belts. At approximately 6:00 a.m. local time, the hijackers drove a van that had been modified to look like an airport security vehicle through a security checkpoint at the Karachi airport, without challenge, and drove up to one of the stairways being used to board passengers for Pan Am Flight 73.
Over the next approximately 16 hours, Safarini, as the leader of the hijackers on board the aircraft, demanded the return of a flight crew to fly the aircraft to Larnaca, Cyprus, where Safarini and his fellow hijackers wanted to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners being detained in Cyprus. During the course of negotiations between Safarini and Pakistani authorities, Safarini threatened to kill all of the passengers.
Within a short time after seizing control of the aircraft, Safarini ordered the flight attendants to collect the passports of passengers. The flight attendants complied with this request but, risking their own lives, they surreptitiously declined to collect some of the United States passports and hid other United States passports from the hijackers. After the passports had been collected, Safarini walked through the cabin of the aircraft, asking passengers about their nationalities. When he arrived at the seat of Rajesh Kumar, a 29-year-old California resident who had recently been naturalized as an American citizen, Safarini ordered Mr. Kumar to come to the front of the aircraft, to kneel at the front doorway of the aircraft and to face the front of the aircraft with his hands behind his head. At approximately 10:00 a.m., Safarini became angry about the delay in complying with his demand for a new flight crew and he threatened that he would shoot Mr. Kumar if something was not done within 15 minutes. Shortly thereafter, Safarini grabbed Mr. Kumar and shot him in the head in front of witnesses both on and off the aircraft. Safarini then heaved Mr. Kumar out of the door onto the tarmac below. Pakistani personnel on the tarmac reported that Mr. Kumar was still breathing when he was placed in an ambulance, but he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at a hospital in Karachi.
As the hours wore on and nightfall came, the lights on the aircraft began to dim and flicker, due to a mechanical failure. At Safarini's instruction, the hijackers herded the passengers and crew members into the center section of the aircraft. Safarini and one other hijacker positioned themselves in front of the crowd of passengers in the right and left aisles, while the two other hijackers positioned themselves behind the crowd of passengers and crew in the right and left aisles. On Safarini's signal, after the hijackers recited a martyrdom prayer in Arabic, and after the lights on the aircraft had gone out, the four hijackers opened fire on the assembled passengers and crew, throwing hand grenades into the crowd and spraying the trapped passengers with automatic weapons fire, attempting to kill as many passengers and crew members as possible. At least 20 additional passengers and crew were killed during this final deadly assault, including a second United States citizen, 50-year-old Surendra Patel, the father of three children, two of whom were next to him on the aircraft when he was shot. Scores of other passengers were injured. Most of the surviving passengers and crew, including 76 United States citizens, escaped through two doors of the plane which were forced open by heroic passengers and flight attendants when the firing began. Many passengers and crew were forced to jump from the wing of the aircraft onto the tarmac in order to escape the hijackers.
In late 2001 the leader of the Palestinian hijackers, Zayd Hassan Abd Al-Latif Masud Al Safarini, was captured in Pakistan and taken to the United States, where he has since been sentenced to a 160 year prison term. (in 2004)
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