dead Wounded

more than 150 people

Aircraft Model Aircraft name

Clipper Empress of the Seas

Airline Departure point Stopovers Destination Flight Board number Date of issue

Airplane

The Boeing 747-121 with serial number 20351 and serial number 127 was released in 1971 and made its first flight on May 21. Its four turbofan engines were Pratt & Whitney JT9D-3A models. On June 18, the aircraft entered the American airline Pan American World Airways, where it received the registration number N656PA and the name Clipper Live Yankees, later renamed to Clipper Empress of the Seas

Crew and passengers

Nationality	Passengers	Crew	Total
Algiers Algeria	3	-	3
Belgium Belgium	2	-	2
UK UK	15	4	19
Denmark Denmark	8	-	8
Germany Germany	81	3	84
India	91	8	99
Ireland	5	-	5
Italy Italy	50	2	52
Canada Canada	30	-	30
Mexico Mexico	8	-	8
Pakistan Pakistan	44	-	44
USA USA	18	1	19
France France	4	1	5
Sweden Sweden	2	-	2
Total	361	19	380

Chronology of events

terrorists

The hijackers were arrested in Pakistan, convicted and sentenced to death in 1988, which was later commuted to life imprisonment.

However, one of them, Zaid Hassan Abd Al-Latif Masud Al Safarini ( Zayd Hassan Abd Al-Latif Masud Al Safarini), who shot at the passengers of the plane, was released from a Pakistani prison in 2001 - but was soon captured by FBI agents in Bangkok and taken to the United States, where he was sentenced to 160 years in prison in Colorado. The remaining four terrorists were released from the central prison (English)Russian the city of Rawalpindi in January 2008; the FBI offered a $5 million reward for their heads.

According to Pakistani intelligence officials, in January 2010, one of the freed hijackers, Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim, was killed in a drone attack in the tribal region of North Waziristan. Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim). But his death has not been confirmed, and he remains on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist List.

Cultural aspects

Flight 73 hijacking is mentioned in Maxim Shakhov's story Russian colonel.

Neerja's film depicts the heroic fate of a young flight attendant, Neerja Bhanot.

see also

Write a review on the article "Boeing 747 hijacking in Karachi"

Notes

Links

• on YouTube - board N656PA 2 years before the hijacking

Excerpt describing the Karachi Boeing 747 hijacking

– Voila un veritable ami! said Helen, beaming, once more touching Bilibip's sleeve with her hand. - Mais c "est que j" aime l "un et l" autre, je ne voudrais pas leur faire de chagrin. Je donnerais ma vie pour leur bonheur a tous deux, [Here is a true friend! But I love both and would not want to upset anyone. For the happiness of both, I would be ready to sacrifice my life.] - she said.
Bilibin shrugged his shoulders, expressing that even he could no longer help such grief.
"Une maitresse femme! Voila ce qui s "appelle poser carrement la question. Elle voudrait epouser tous les trois a la fois", ["Well done woman! That's what is called to put the question firmly. She would like to be the wife of all three at the same time. "] thought Bilibin.
“But tell me, how does your husband look at this matter?” he said, owing to the firmness of his reputation, not afraid to drop himself with such a naive question. Will he agree?
- Ah! Il m "aime tant!" - said Helen, who for some reason thought that Pierre also loved her. - Il fera tout pour moi. [Ah! he loves me so much! He is ready for anything for me.]
Bilibin picked up the skin to indicate the forthcoming mot.
– Meme le divorce, [Even for a divorce.] – he said.
Ellen laughed.
Among the people who allowed themselves to doubt the legality of the proposed marriage was Helen's mother, Princess Kuragina. She was constantly tormented by envy of her daughter, and now, when the object of envy was the closest to the heart of the princess, she could not come to terms with this thought. She consulted with a Russian priest about the extent to which divorce and marriage were possible with a living husband, and the priest told her that this was impossible, and, to her joy, pointed out to her the Gospel text, which (it seemed to the priest) directly rejected the possibility of marriage from a living husband.
Armed with these arguments, which seemed to her irrefutable, the princess early in the morning, in order to find her alone, went to her daughter.
After listening to her mother's objections, Helen smiled meekly and mockingly.
“But it’s directly said: who marries a divorced wife ...” said the old princess.
Ah, maman, ne dites pas de betises. Vous ne comprenez rien. Dans ma position j "ai des devoirs, [Ah, mama, don't talk nonsense. You don't understand anything. There are responsibilities in my position.] - Helen spoke, translating the conversation into French from Russian, in which she always seemed to have some kind of ambiguity in her business.
But my friend...
– Ah, maman, comment est ce que vous ne comprenez pas que le Saint Pere, qui a le droit de donner des dispenses…
At this time, the lady companion, who lived with Helen, came in to report to her that his highness was in the hall and wanted to see her.
- Non, dites lui que je ne veux pas le voir, que je suis furieuse contre lui, parce qu "il m" a manque parole. [No, tell him that I don't want to see him, that I'm furious against him because he didn't keep his word to me.]
- Comtesse a tout peche misericorde, [Countess, mercy to every sin.] - said, entering, a young blond man with a long face and nose.
The old princess rose respectfully and sat down. The young man who entered ignored her. The princess nodded her daughter's head and swam to the door.
“No, she is right,” thought the old princess, all of whose convictions were destroyed before the appearance of his highness. - She is right; but how is it that in our irretrievable youth we did not know this? And it was so simple, ”the old princess thought, getting into the carriage.

In early August, Helen's case was completely decided, and she wrote a letter to her husband (who she thought was very fond of her) in which she informed him of her intention to marry NN and that she had entered into the one true religion and that she asks him to complete all the formalities necessary for the divorce, which the bearer of this letter will convey to him.
“Sur ce je prie Dieu, mon ami, de vous avoir sous sa sainte et puissante garde. Votre amie Helene.
[“Then I pray to God that you, my friend, be under his holy strong cover. Your friend Elena"]
This letter was brought to Pierre's house while he was on the Borodino field.

The second time, already at the end of the battle of Borodino, having escaped from the Raevsky battery, Pierre with crowds of soldiers headed along the ravine to Knyazkov, reached the dressing station and, seeing blood and hearing screams and groans, hastily moved on, getting mixed up in the crowds of soldiers.
One thing that Pierre now wanted with all the strength of his soul was to get out of those terrible impressions in which he lived that day as soon as possible, return to the usual conditions of life and fall asleep peacefully in the room on his bed. Only under ordinary conditions of life did he feel that he would be able to understand himself and all that he had seen and experienced. But these ordinary conditions of life were nowhere to be found.
Although the balls and bullets did not whistle here along the road along which he walked, but from all sides it was the same as it was there, on the battlefield. There were the same suffering, tormented and sometimes strangely indifferent faces, the same blood, the same soldier's greatcoats, the same sounds of shooting, although distant, but still terrifying; in addition, there was stuffiness and dust.
After walking about three versts along the high Mozhaisk road, Pierre sat down on its edge.
Twilight descended on the earth, and the rumble of the guns subsided. Pierre, leaning on his arm, lay down and lay for such a long time, looking at the shadows moving past him in the darkness. Incessantly it seemed to him that with a terrible whistle a cannonball flew at him; he winced and got up. He did not remember how long he had been here. In the middle of the night, three soldiers, dragging branches, placed themselves beside him and began to make fire.
The soldiers, looking sideways at Pierre, kindled a fire, put a bowler hat on it, crumbled crackers into it and put lard. The pleasant smell of edible and greasy food merged with the smell of smoke. Pierre got up and sighed. The soldiers (there were three of them) ate, not paying attention to Pierre, and talked among themselves.

It was the first time in the USSR that a capture of such a scale took place. passenger aircraft(hijacking). With him, in essence, began a long-term series of similar tragedies that spattered the skies of the whole world with the blood of innocent people.

And it all started like this.

An-24 took off from the Batumi airfield on October 15, 1970 at 12:30. Course - to Sukhumi. There were 46 passengers and 5 crew members on board the aircraft. Scheduled flight time is 25-30 minutes.

But life broke both the schedule and the schedule.

At the 4th minute of the flight, the plane sharply deviated from the course. The radio operators requested the board - there was no answer. Communication with the control tower was interrupted. The plane was leaving towards close Turkey.

Military and rescue boats went to sea. Their captains were ordered to follow 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 over the Turkish coastal airfield of Trabzon, two rockets flashed - red, then green. It was a signal emergency landing. The plane touched the concrete pier air harbor. Telegraph agencies around the world immediately reported that a Soviet passenger plane had been hijacked. The flight attendant was killed, there are wounded. Everything.

BLACK ENVELOPE

I flew to the place of emergency in a few hours. He flew, not 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 recount - at least briefly - the events of those days and again speak about Nadia 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 a person. To tell about this, first of all, to the 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 bear her name.

After takeoff, greetings and instructions to passengers, the flight attendant returned to her working room, a narrow compartment. She opened a bottle of "Borjomi" and, letting the water shoot up with sparkling tiny balls, filled four plastic cups for the crew. Putting them on a tray, she entered the cabin.

The crew was always glad to have a beautiful, young, extremely benevolent girl in the cockpit. Probably, she felt this attitude towards herself and, of course, she was also happy. Perhaps, 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, Nadia was in a wonderful mood - everyone who saw her in the last minutes of her clean, happy life claimed.

Having drunk the crew, she returned to her compartment. At that moment, the bell rang: one of the passengers called the flight attendant. She approached. Passenger said:

Pass it on to the commander urgently, - and handed her some kind of envelope.

"ATTACK! HE'S ARMED!"

Nadia took the envelope. Their eyes must have met. She must have been surprised at the tone in which those words were spoken. But she did not find out anything, but stepped to the door luggage compartment- further was the door of the pilot's cabin. Probably, Nadia'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 in Nadia's eyes, a subconscious suspicion, a shadow of danger. This turned out to be enough for the sick imagination to announce the alarm: failure, verdict, exposure. Self-control failed: he literally catapulted out of his chair and rushed after Nadia.

She barely had time to take a step towards the cockpit when he flung open the door to her compartment, which had just been closed by it.

You can't come here! she screamed.

But he was coming closer, like the shadow of a beast. She realized that the enemy was in front of her. In the next second, he also understood: she would break all plans.

Nadia screamed again:

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

But he took out a weapon - the nerves burned to the ground. Nadia did not know his intentions. But I knew he was absolutely dangerous. Dangerous for the crew, dangerous for the passengers.

She clearly saw the revolver.

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

Attack! He is armed!

And at the same moment, slamming the cabin door, she turned around to face the bandit, enraged by such a course of affairs, and prepared for an attack. He, as well as the crew, heard her words - no 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 LINE

He could be a maniac and shoot the crew. He could kill the crew and passengers. He could... She didn't know his actions, his intentions. And he knew: jumping towards her, he tried to knock her down. Leaning her hands against the wall, Nadya resisted and continued to resist.

The first bullet hit her in the thigh. She clung even tighter to the pilot's door. The terrorist tried to squeeze her throat. Nadia - knock out a weapon from his right hand. The stray bullet went through the ceiling. Nadia 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 filled up the roaring car to the left, and then to the right. In the next second, the plane went up steeply: the pilots tried to knock down the attacker, believing that his experience in this matter was not great, and Nadia would hold on.

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

The young man opened his gray cloak, and the passengers saw grenades - they were tied to their belts. "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 belts and jumped out of their seats. Two of them were closest to the place where the criminal was sitting, and they were the first to feel the trouble. Galina Kiryak and Aslan Kaishanba, however, did not have time to take a step: they were outstripped by the one who was sitting next to the man who had escaped into the cabin. The young bandit - and he was much younger than the first, for they turned out to be father and son - grabbed a sawn-off shotgun and fired along the salon. The bullet whistled over the heads of the shocked passengers.

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

Pilots with even greater sharpness began to throw the plane from one position to another. The young man fired again. The bullet pierced the fuselage skin and went right through. Depressurization aircraft not yet threatened - the height was negligible.

The next 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 will 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 aircraft, the elder remained on his feet and, with bestial fury, tried to tear Nadia away from the door of the pilot's cabin. He needed a leader. He needed a crew. He needed a plane.

Struck by the incredible resistance of Nadia, enraged by his own impotence to cope with the wounded, bloody, 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 cockpit. Behind him is his geek with a sawn-off shotgun.

To Turkey! To Turkey! Return to the Soviet coast - we will blow up the plane!

42 BULLETS ON THE CREW

Another bullet pierced the back of the commander - Grigory Chakhrakiya. In order to keep at least a little blood in his body, so as not to lose consciousness and not to 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 - a bullet paralyzes the right hand of the navigator Valery Fadeev and hits the chest. There is a communication microphone in his hand, Fadeev loses consciousness, no one can open his hand with a microphone - each of the crew members is already wounded, Nadia is dead.

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

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

LOOKING 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 Nadia. But it should be said, apparently, and about something else.

The scale of state and public actions associated with an unprecedented event was enormous. Members of the State Commission, the USSR Foreign Ministry 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 aircraft; an air corridor for the transfer of injured crew members and those passengers who needed urgent medical care from Trabzon hospitals; of course, those who did not suffer physically, but ended up in a foreign land against their will; an air corridor was required for a special flight from Trabzon to Sukhumi with Nadia's body. Her mother had already flown to Sukhumi from Udmurtia.

There were many concerns. But all these dramatic actions could not alleviate the acute pain of the loss - Nadia remained at the center of any conversations of a huge country, television and radio programs, and newspapers.

Air Marshal, Minister civil aviation USSR Boris Pavlovich Bugaev. I twice - due to circumstances - talked on the phone with the minister, who listened to wishes, advice, requests to meet Nadia's mother in Sukhumi, decide on the place of burial, 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 non-commissioned flight?

No. Couldn't. In any case, I don't believe in it.

In Komsomolskaya Pravda, where I then worked (and was the first and only journalist from Moscow at the scene of the tragedy), in the first two weeks after even the censored reports, more than 12 thousand letters and telegrams came from shocked readers who mourned Nadya and admired her courage !

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

On the day of Nadia's funeral, over her coffin littered with flowers and over the heads of thousands of people following her coffin through the streets of the city, all the planes leaving for the flight shook their wings, demonstrating tribute to their protector, their young colleague, their heroine. In each of these planes, flight attendants tearfully told their passengers:

Look down while the city is visible. These people say goodbye to our friend. With our Nadia.

Do you believe that we are all the same?

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

I absolutely believe in these words that are familiar to hearing, but written by Nadia's hand and heart.

PAY

The bandits punished themselves

The terrorists turned out to be 46-year-old Lithuanian Pranas Brazinskas (pictured 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 condemned 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 USA: they got off the plane in New York bound for 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 had an argument with his son, for which he received several fatal blows with a bat. Algirdas was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

1973 Soviet Union the ballad "My clear star" flew around like a dove. No one had any doubts: the song is dedicated to the young stewardess, forever remaining in the sky. Murdered three weeks before the wedding. And performed on behalf of her fiancé. The sad story is still replicated on the Internet to this day. However, this is just a beautiful legend...

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

The tragic halo 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 Star" with one subtext, now - in memory of his son who died early. And he summed up the sad result: "Inexplicably, the main song in the program became the main one in life."

The main song "Asterisk" became in the life of the composer Vladimir Semenov. He was already 35 years old. Behind Astrakhan, an automobile and road technical school, a home-made electric guitar and hundreds of kilometers on a battered bus that traveled around with concert teams of the Astrakhan Philharmonic...

“Of course, I remember the story of the hijacking of the plane, then they wrote a lot about Nadia’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 Vologda poetess Olga Fokina from the store shelf. Literally 12- 13 pages printed on thin newsprint.I started flipping through them and suddenly came across the words "People's songs are different, but mine is one for ages." Something hooked me in these lines."

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

"After all the hassle - rehearsals, recordings - my wife and I went to rest in Sochi," composer Vladimir Semenov recalls today. Sasha Losev's voice: "People have different songs, but mine is one for centuries!"

Vologda poetess Olga Fokina wrote these lines a few years before the tragedy aboard the An-24. Lines about my own, very personal. Her famous countryman, writer Fyodor Abramov, said that Olga "is very close to life, she always has no fiction, no letters, no words in her poems - poems are generated by life itself ... they captivate, enchant you with sincerity, purity and immediacy of feelings" .

All those things that Nadya Kurchenko remembered and forever remained in the people's memory.

Nirya Bganoth was a simple Indian girl who grew up with two brothers in the family of a journalist and a housewife in Mumbai.

A beautiful girl was noticed by a modeling agency and invited to her job.

Simultaneously with modeling, she applied for Pan American World Airways, which decided to recruit Indian employees on flights from Frankfurt to Mumbai, and got the job.

Bganot was the chief flight attendant on Pan Am Flight 73, which flew from Mumbai to New York with stops in Karachi and Frankfurt. The plane was hijacked on 5 September 1986 by four gunmen at Karachi airport in Pakistan. At that time, there were 361 passengers and 19 crew members on the plane. The terrorists wanted to fly to Cyprus to free the Palestinian prisoners held there.

Bganot warned the pilots that terrorists had entered the plane. Upon learning of this, the pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer left the aircraft on the runway through the cockpit hatch. After the escape of the pilots, Nirya was the most senior among the remaining crew members and took responsibility for what was happening on the plane.

The raiders were members of the Abu Nidal Organization and saw US citizens as their main target. They managed to identify one American, whom they dragged to the exit, shot and dumped the body on runway. They then instructed Bganot to collect the passports of all the passengers so that they could find out which of them was American. Nirya and other flight attendants hid 41 US passports under the seats and in the trash.

17 hours after the capture, the hijackers started shooting. Bganot opened the emergency exit and began to help the passengers get out. According to one of the surviving passengers: “She directed passengers to emergency exit, while the terrorists were constantly shooting, fearing that the security forces would attack the plane. Seeing that Nirya was trying to help the passengers, they grabbed her by the hair and shot her point-blank.”

She was killed while trying to protect three American children from bullets. Of all the American passengers on board, two were killed.

The boy, whom Nirya covered with her body, became a pilot and now works for a major airline. He said that Bganot had always been an example for him, and that he remembered that he owed her every day of his life.

In addition to rescuing 359 of the 379 hostages on board, Bganot also prevented the plane from taking off.

Nirya Bganot is the youngest recipient of the Ashoka Chakra Award, India's most prestigious award for courage and heroism in times of peace.

Posthumously, she received several awards from the US government for courage and the Pakistani Tamgha-e-Insaniyat for human kindness.

Nirya died two days before her 23rd birthday.

Nirya Bganot

Before the ill-fated flight, her mother urged Nirya to take the day off because she had been working on a modeling project all day the day before. But the responsible girl decided not to let her colleagues down.

Neerja Bhanot was born on September 7, 1963 in Chandigarh, India. Her father worked as a journalist.

Apparently, in connection with the nature of his activities, the family moved to Mumbai (then Bombay). Here the girl graduated from high school.

From the age of 16, the future heroine worked as a model, representing many well-known brands. In March 1985, her parents married her. As it happens in India, by agreement. But the husband turned out to be picky: he did not like the dowry, and two months later he returned his wife back.

A failed marriage landed Neerja in the Pan American office. She successfully passed the pre-selection, and she was taken to the position of chief flight attendant.

On that ill-fated day, Bhanot was serving passengers on Flight RA 73. The plane took off from Mumbai and landed in Karachi at 5:00. Four radical Islamists rushed on board and took the passengers and crew hostage.

Neerja immediately distinguished herself with her speed of reaction: she instantly warned the pilots, and they fled through the emergency hatch.

Further, the young girl witnessed a monstrous massacre. The terrorists shot at anyone who called himself an American. They then demanded a passport to check if even one US citizen was still alive. Neerja excelled again: she hid the documents in the garbage chute. Thanks to her bold move, no one else was killed.

When Pakistani police began storming the plane, Bhanot took advantage of the commotion to evacuate all the passengers. She was not embarrassed by bullets flying past and exploding grenades.

As she was about to leave the aircraft, the stewardess turned around for the last time. And I noticed 3 children - they were hiding behind the seats and were afraid to go out.

The girl hurried to pick them up. Unfortunately, the terrorists noticed her and opened fire. The brave Neerja covered the children with her body. She was mortally wounded, but she evacuated those passengers anyway. And then she died...

As you know, one of the rescued boys grew up and became a pilot.

Neerja Bhanot was posthumously awarded the Order of the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest award for bravery. The girl is the youngest of all those who have been awarded it.

A story that left a great sadness in my soul! The whole world should know about Neerja's courage. Share this post with your friends!

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 it's not that you have to fly above the clouds. Most often, the danger comes from passengers.

About the heroic flight attendants who managed not to lose their heads in a difficult situation and fulfill their duty to the end, even at the cost of their own lives, - further in the review.

Nirya Bganot

Nirya (Nirja) Bganot is an Indian flight attendant who rescued 360 passengers.

23-year-old Indian flight attendant Nirya (Nirja) Bganot sacrificed her life saving 360 passengers. It happened in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The plane PAN AM 73 was captured by radical Islamists. The stewardess was not taken aback and managed to immediately warn the pilots. They evacuated through an escape hatch so that the plane could not be lifted into the air.

Niria herself remained in the cabin. 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. Because of this, they survived.

When the Pakistani police began to storm, and the terrorists began to shoot back, Niria managed to evacuate passengers from the plane on her own. 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 stewardess was taking the children out, the Islamists noticed them and started shooting. The girl covered the kids with herself and was mortally wounded. With the last of her strength, she took the children out of the plane, and then died.

Nadezhda Kurchenko

Nadezhda Kurchenko is a Soviet flight attendant who died in a fight with terrorists.

On October 15, 1970, 19-year-old stewardess Nadezhda Kurchenko paid with her life in an attempt to prevent terrorists from hijacking the plane. The An-24 aircraft carrying Nadezhda was on a Batumi-Sukhumi flight. The entire flight was supposed to take only half an hour. At the 5th minute after takeoff, one of the passengers called the stewardess to him, put an envelope in her hand and demanded to take it to the commander. Either Nadia 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 of 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 behind the door, and began to sharply turn the plane to the left, right, up, hoping to knock the criminal down (the passengers were still wearing their seat belts). The terrorist resisted and shot Nadezhda in the thigh, but the fragile girl continued to resist. Then he fired point-blank.

A telegram of condolences addressed to the mother of Nadezhda Kurchenko, Henrietta Ivanovna.

Victoria Zilberstein

Victoria Zilberstein is a flight attendant who rescued passengers during a plane crash.

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

When taxiing began (maneuvering an airliner moving along the airfield due to engine thrust), Victoria noticed that the plane did not stop for a long time. Suddenly she felt a push, the lights went out in the cabin and smoke appeared. At that moment, the stewardess flashed only one thought: you need to save 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 stewardess pulled the emergency exit lever and opened the hatch. People climbed out, sliding down the tilted wing, Victoria let them go ahead, choking on the acrid smoke. Then she went out on her own.

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

Sheila Frederick

Sheila Frederick, who managed to save a girl from sexual slavery.

That flight began as usual: passengers took their seats, and the flight attendants performed 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 very decent, and the girl's clothes looked like rags. And that fearful 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 for landing, the police were already waiting at the gangway. It turned out that the girl was indeed taken against her will to be sent into sexual slavery.

Mor Levy and Nitzan Rabinovich

Flight attendants can come to the rescue even when they are on the ground and not in the air. Israeli flight attendants Nitzan Rabinovich and Mor Levy saved an 80-year-old man from death. On that day, the girls were at the Beijing airport. They were already heading to their plane, when suddenly Nitzan noticed that she had lost her phone. She asked her friend to go back to the subway 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 give artificial respiration to the lying person, as they were taught in first aid courses. More ordered people to run to the airport and fetch a defibrillator while she called an ambulance. The girls arrived on time. They started the heart of the Chinese, and by the time the doctors arrived, the man even opened his eyes.

The flight attendants took 30 minutes to rescue the Chinese man. They rushed to their flight at a run, managed to do it 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.