She was recognized internationally as "the heroine of the hijacking" and became the youngest recipient of the Ashok Chakra Award, India's most prestigious gallantry award for bravery during peacetime. A child on board, then aged seven, is now a captain for a major airline and has stated that Bhanot has been his inspiration, and that he owes every day of his life to her. They saw Neerja relentlessly trying to help three unaccompanied children, among others, out and that is when they caught her by her hair and shot her point blank." Out of a total of 44 American passengers, two were killed during the hijacking. That is when the terrorists were firing constantly fearing a commando attack. According to a surviving passenger, "She was guiding the passengers to the emergency exit. Bhanot opened one of the airplane doors, and even though she could have been the first one to jump out and flee from the aircraft, she did not do so and instead started helping the other passengers escape. Īfter 17 hours, the hijackers opened fire and set off explosives. She and the other attendants under her charge hid the passports of the remaining 43 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 passengers. The terrorists then instructed Bhanot to collect the passports of all the passengers so that they could identify the other Americans on board. In the early minutes of the hijacking, they identified an Indian-American citizen, dragged him to the exit, shot him dead and threw his body from the plane. The hijackers were part of the Abu Nidal Organization, a Palestinian terrorist organization backed by Libya they were targeting Americans and American assets. As the most senior cabin crew member, Bhanot took charge of the situation inside the plane. Bhanot was able to alert the cockpit crew as soon as the hijackers boarded the plane, and as the plane was on the apron, the three-member cockpit crew of pilot, co-pilot and the flight engineer fled from the aircraft through an overhead hatch in the cockpit. The terrorists wanted to fly to Cyprus with the goal of freeing Palestinian prisoners in Cyprus. The aircraft was carrying 380 passengers and 13 crew members. She also had a successful modelling career simultaneously during her work at Pan Am.īhanot was the Senior Flight Purser on Pan Am Flight 73 flying from Mumbai to the United States via Karachi and Frankfurt, which was hijacked by four armed men on 5 September 1986 at Karachi airport in Pakistan. Upon selection, she went to Miami, Florida for training as a flight attendant, but returned as a purser. Career īhanot applied for a flight attendant job with Pan Am, when in 1985 it decided to have an all Indian cabin crew for its Frankfurt to India routes. Her mother died on 5 December 2015 at the age of 86. Her father, Harish Bhanot, worked as a journalist with The Hindustan Times for more than 30 years and died on New Year's Day in 2008 in Chandigarh at the age of 86. She had an arranged marriage and moved in with her husband but the marriage began to deteriorate and she returned to her home two months later. She was a huge fan of actor Rajesh Khanna and used to refer to quotes from his films throughout her life. It was in Bombay where she was first spotted for a modelling assignment which began her modelling career. When the family moved to Bombay, she continued her studies at Bombay Scottish School and then graduated from St. She received her early schooling at Sacred Heart Senior Secondary School in Chandigarh. She had two brothers, Akhil and Aneesh Bhanot. She was the daughter of Harish Bhanot, a Bombay-based journalist, and Rama Bhanot. Watch Neerja (2016) Streaming Now Without Downloading.Bhanot was born in Chandigarh, India, and brought up in Bombay (present-day Mumbai) in a Punjabi Hindu Brahmin family.
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