Pan Am Flight 73 with 358 people on board is hijacked at Karachi International Airport.
Pan Am Flight 73 was a Pan American World Airways flight from Bombay, India, to New York, United States with scheduled stops in Karachi, Pakistan and Frankfurt, West Germany.
On September 5, 1986, the Boeing 747-121 serving the flight was hijacked by four armed Palestinian men of the Abu Nidal Organization while on the ground at Karachi. The aircraft, with 360 passengers on board, had just arrived from Bombay. A grand jury later concluded that the militants were planning to use the hijacked airliner to pick up Palestinian prisoners in both Cyprus and Israel.Forty-three passengers were injured or killed during the hijacking, including nationals from India, the United States, Pakistan, and Mexico. All the hijackers were arrested and sentenced to death in Pakistan. However, the sentences were later commuted to life in prison. Neerja Bhanot, head attendant on the flight was shot dead and posthumously received the highest civil award Tamgha-e-Pakistan from Pakistan as well as India's highest peacetime award for bravery, the Ashok Chakra Award, for her efforts to save passengers' lives.