‘Neerja’ Movie on Neerja Bhanot: Youngest person to receive the Ashok Chakra

Neerja Bhanot was a purser for Pan Am, based in Mumbai, India, who was murdered while saving passengers from terrorists on board the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 on 5 September 1986. Posthumously, she became the youngest recipient of India’s highest peacetime military award for bravery, the Ashok Chakra.

Bhanot was the senior flight purser on the ill-fated Pan Am Flight 73 flying from Mumbai to USA, which was hijacked by four armed men on 5 Sepetmber 1986 atKarachi airport in Pakistan. The aircraft was carrying 400 passengers. The terrorist wanted to fly to Israel and wanted to crash the plane against a building. After the terrorists boarded the plane, Neerja alerted the cockpit crew As the plane was on the tarmac, the three-member American cockpit crew of pilot, co-pilot and the flight engineer evacuated the aircraft through an overhead hatch in the cockpit per their training so that the aircraft could not be forcibly flown. Bhanot, being the most senior cabin crew member remaining aboard, took charge.

The hijackers were part of the terrorist Abu Nidal Organization and were backed by Libya. The terrorists then instructed Bhanot to collect the passports of all the passengers so that they could identify the Americans. The terrorists wanted to put pressure on America by identifying and threatening the Americans on the aircraft. Bhanot and the other attendants under her charge hid the passports of the 41 Americans on board; some under a seat and the rest down a rubbish chute so that the hijackers could not differentiate between American and Non-American citizens.

After 17 hours, the hijackers opened fire and set off explosives. Bhanot opened the emergency door, flung a chute and assisted all the passengers escape. She could have been the first to jump out when she opened the door but she decided not to and was shot while shielding three children from a hail of bullets. From a total of 41 American passengers, only 2 were killed during firing. One of the children, then aged 7, is now a captain for a major airline and has stated that Neerja Bhanot has been his inspiration and he owes every day of his life to her. Bhanot was recognized internationally as “the heroine of the hijack” and is the youngest recipient of the Ashok Chakra Award, India’s most prestigious gallantry award for bravery during peace time.

This incidence happened just two days before her twenty-third birthday. Not only had she assured the failure of the hijacking by preventing the plane from getting off the ground, she also saved the lives of hostages in those long hours of incarceration.

Of all the promo material that has been released for this Friday?s film Neerja, this is surely the most evocative. Neerja Bhanot, the 23-year-old flight attendant who was killed in the 1986 hijacking of a Pan Am flight, is played by actress Sonam Kapoor in the Ram Madhvani-made film. A recording of an in-flight announcement made by the real Neerja Bhanot has now been released on YouTube by the makers of the movie.

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