Pan Am Flight 73 Hijacking

The takeover of a Pan American World Airways jumbo jet in the predawn hours of September 5, 1986, developed into a tragic 16-hour ordeal. Hijackers linked to the extremist group known as the Abu Nidal Organization killed 22 hostages during the standoff at the Karachi International Airport in Pakistan.

As the last busload of passengers was boarding a flight to Frankfurt, Germany en route to New York, four men dressed as security personnel took over the plane. According to a 1991 US indictment, they had passed through Karachi Airport security in a van outfitted to look like a security vehicle. The hijackers stopped the van at the bottom of the plane's stairs, ran up firing shots, and commandeered the aircraft. Flight attendants on board alerted the crew, who escaped through an emergency exit in the cockpit. The 379 passengers aboard were held hostage as the hijackers demanded a new crew to fly them to Cyprus, in order to free “friends” in prison there. To enforce the demand, the men selected and executed an American citizen, Rajesh Kumar. They also threatened to blow up the aircraft with all passengers on board.

Many of the deadlines set by the hijackers went unheeded as they pursued discussions with Pakistani police about whether they would release all passengers before flying on, or just women and children. Then, at about 8 p.m., the plane's auxiliary power stopped working and the lights dimmed. The hijackers rounded up passengers in a huddle in the center of the plane, and when the plane turned completely dark, they fired on the passengers with machine guns and grenades. Twenty-one passengers were killed and many others were injured in this assault. Some passengers, however, were able to force open the left and right escape doors and flee the aircraft as Pakistani commandos stormed the plane and fired on the hijackers. They killed one of the gunmen and captured the other three.

The U.S. indicted six men linked to the Abu Nidal Organization in 1991 on murder charges. Two U.S. citizens, Kumar and Surendra Patel, were among those killed in the attack. In late September 2001, Pakistan released Zayd Hassan Safarini, who had spent 14 years in a Pakistani jail for murder in the Pan Am 73 hijacking, into U.S. custody to stand trial in the United States. Safarini pled guilty to 95 charges, including murder, air piracy, and terrorism, on December 16, 2003, and was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences, as well as 25 years in prison. He is currently incarcerated in a federal prison in Colorado.