Hijacked – Flight 73: The hostage who survived the 1986 Pan Am plane attack – and has now been told why by one of the terrorists
Wearing a red duvet jacket, an old T-shirt and a Panama hat, all of which had seen better days, Mike Thexton stood out like a sore thumb when he turned into the business class section of Pan Am Flight 73.
It was 5 September 1986, the plane sitting on the tarmac at Karachi airport in Pakistan in the early hours of the morning. Desperate for a decent night’s sleep and good food as he made his way back to the UK from a mountaineering trek, Mike had swapped his flight to get home a little earlier and decided to upgrade for the first time in his life.
“I can still call to mind the feeling as I put my bag down on this very big seat,” he says now. “I took out a book and thought: this is fantastic.”
The plane never took off. As it sat on the runway, Palestinian terrorists dressed as security officers stormed the aircraft, armed with Kalashnikovs, pistols and explosives; it was the start of a terrifying 16-hour ordeal for almost 400 passengers and crew on board.
Mike, aged 27 at the time, was taken hostage towards the start of the hijack after the terrorists collected passports and called his name. A gun was pointed towards him.
“By then, I was never in doubt they would shoot me,” he says. “I thought: somebody is going to die today, and it’s going to be me.”
In the end, the majority of the killing was indiscriminate; guns were fired and explosives detonated in darkness as the plane’s power went down after about 15 hours. Twenty-one people died and more than 100 were injured; but despite his initial call-up, Mike was spared.
Almost 40 years later, his story has had an extraordinary update. As part of a new Sky feature documentary, Hijacked: Flight 73, he was able to have a conversation with the man who held him at gunpoint – and discovered there was a reason he left the plane alive.
It starts with the motivation for his trip: his brother, Peter Thexton.
‘It was important to me to see where my brother died’
Mike Thexton’s older brother, Peter Thexton
Peter was a doctor and a climber who had died three years earlier, aged 30, on Broad Peak, the 12th highest mountain in the world.
Following an unsuccessful attempt on Everest in 1980, Peter was part of a group aiming to climb K2 and used the nearby Broad Peak, on the border of Pakistan and China, for acclimatisation to extreme altitude. During the trek, he developed fluid on his lungs and had to be lowered down to a high camp at 24,000ft. Despite efforts to save him, he died during the night.
Mike, now 63, from southwest London, wanted to honour his big brother. “It was important to me to see where he died,” he tells Sky News. “It was only years later when I had children of my own that I suddenly thought about my parents, that they would have not wanted me to go.”
On the plane, his first realisation something was wrong was when he heard shouting. Then he saw a man struggling with a flight attendant.
“He had a pistol in his hand, his arm wrapped round her. I remember thinking: that’s a man with a gun, how extraordinary. I didn’t duck or run away or go to help or anything, I just stared like an idiot.”
‘I was told to kneel in the doorway’
It quickly became apparent the militants’ hijack was not going to plan. The large aircraft, a jumbo jet, had an upper floor and there was confusion over where the cockpit was located, giving the pilots time to escape – and therefore no chance of the plane being under terrorist control in the air.
The terrorists were part of the Abu Nidal Organisation (ANO), which was responsible for several attacks in the 1980s; the plan for Pan Am 73 was to force the pilots to fly them to Cyprus and Israel, where other members of their militant group had been jailed on terror charges. Rajesh Kumar, 29, was the first passenger to be shot dead following failed attempts to negotiate with officials on the ground for the pilot to return.
When Mike’s name was called out, he got up. “I didn’t look much like my passport photo after a couple of months in the mountains, but I knew they would find me anyway. I felt I had to do what I was told.”
He remained calm. He had not witnessed the death of his fellow passenger, but flight attendants had. He was asked if he was carrying a gun by the group’s leader, Zaid Hassan Abd Latif Safarini. “It was the most ridiculous question. I was probably very close to hysterics, I just burst out laughing… and then he told me to kneel in the doorway.”
The conversation with a killer
Crew members around him were in tears. Mike attempted to appeal to his captor. “‘Please, please don’t hurt me. My brother has died in the mountains, my parents have no one else’. He just waved his hand as if to say, I haven’t got time for that. That’s not important. In effect, I’m going to do what I’m going to do, and you don’t really matter.”
He was left in the doorway for several hours, convinced he was going to die. In an attempt to connect with the attackers, he prayed, touching his head to the floor. “I stayed very calm,” he says. “I’d spent a couple of months in the mountains, mainly thinking about my brother and his death, and I just felt terribly sad for my parents. They had lost my brother… and then this.”
The hours rolled on and Mike eventually fell asleep. “People ask how, but I was exhausted. It’s very tiring being afraid for that long.” He remembers being woken by one of the terrorists kicking his feet. “‘Up, up, move’, he said, and put me back with the others. I couldn’t understand it.”
As the power went off and the shooting began, Mike made his escape as people poured out on to one of the wings of the plane. Like many others, he jumped. “For so many years afterwards, I thought about why they didn’t shoot me when they had the chance.”
The Hijacked documentary gave him the opportunity to find out. Producers had made contact with Safarini, who is serving a 160-year sentence in the US after originally being jailed in Pakistan for 15 years.
“I thought long and hard about it,” says Mike. “I certainly didn’t want people watching this film thinking I was having a friendly conversation with the man who killed all those people. But it was an opportunity I had to take.”
He had never forgotten the man he thought would end his life. But perhaps surprisingly, Safarini also remembered Mike Thexton. When Mike asked him why he was spared, he told him it was because of his brother. “I was speechless. It never occurred to me that he had even paid any attention, or cared, 12 hours earlier when I had told him that. It was stunning.”
The hero flight attendants
Pic: Sunshine Vesuwala/ Blast Films/ Sky UK
Mike is one of a number of survivors who share their stories in the new documentary. Another is Sunshine Vesuwala, who had been a flight attendant for just six months before the attack.
She remembers getting on the plane that day and noticing the doors were missing from a storage cabinet. “It was kind of swinging and had no support at the bottom,” she tells Sky News. “It was a little worrisome. But it was actually the best thing because we managed to shove people into the galley under the counter, and they were saved.”
When Sunshine first saw a man dressed in a security uniform holding a gun to a passenger’s head, she wasn’t afraid. “We thought there was something wrong with the passenger, that he was a smuggler or something,” she says. Then he grabbed flight attendant Neerja Bhanot. “That was when we realised it was us they were after.”
Before the attackers could find the pilots, Sunshine was called. “I was on my knees in the aisle; everyone had to put their hands in the air and just be quiet. He called me up – ‘you, come here’ – so I got up and I went.” She was asked to point out the cockpit and tried to stall. When the attackers realised the pilots had left, they asked her if they were men. “I said yes. He said they had run away, and he laughed.”
But it was the best thing the captains could have done, she says. “Any little thing in flight, under pressure… we didn’t know what they were up to and it basically comes down to lives being saved.”
When the attackers asked for passports, Sunshine helped collect them. She hid those of white Americans, fearing they would be targeted. As the hours passed, she listened out for the attackers potentially revealing each others’ names, writing them down on plasters she was carrying for potential identification later.
“I really didn’t think we’d survive,” she says. “It was a question of delaying the inevitable.”
When the lights went out, a passenger managed to open a door amid chaos as the attackers started firing. “I could see people running. They got on to the wing and some were jumping. Everyone was in a panic. So I went out and whoever was going to jump, I let them jump. The wing was full and there was no way I could control the crowd.”
Rather than jumping herself, she went back into the plane with another crew member to help those who needed it. Her colleague Neerja had done the same. Sunshine found her inside, injured. “She collapsed on the floor. We carried her and pushed her down [a slide that had been inflated].” Neerja was still alive at this point, says Sunshine, but later died of her injuries.
Mike is one of several survivors speaking about his ordeal. Pic: Blast Films/ Sky UK
When she herself was back on the ground, her first thought was to find Mike.
“He was a hostage in the front for a very long time and I was worried,” she says. “I didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. I saw him and just grabbed hold of him.”
Mike went on to write a book about his experience, What Happened To The Hippy Man? Now, he is pleased to have some answers about the ordeal – and how his brother’s story saved his life.
“I think [Safarini] thought that this person has lost somebody who was close to him,” he says. “Then it just becomes that little bit harder to shoot him. I was a real person, and I’d lost my brother.”
Hijacked airs on Sky Documentaries and Now from 29 April
Kneecap rapper Liam Og O hAnnaidh told Glastonbury he is a “free man” as the Irish rap band played to a huge crowd – the biggest of their career, they said.
The trio were defiant on stage after calls from some politicians for them to be cut from the line-up.
They were greeted by cheers of support, and dozens of Palestinian flags waving in the crowd, as well as Irish flags and a few “Free Mo Chara” T-shirts.
J J O Dochartaigh, aka DJ Provai. Pic: Reuters
The trio drew a big crowd to the West Holts stage. Pic: Reuters
On stage, the band told fans their legal case had been stressful, but emphasised it was nothing compared with what Palestinians are going through.
Kneecap played the West Holts stage, which has a capacity of about 30,000, and the area was closed by security about 45 minutes before their set.
O hAnnaidh and Naoise O Caireallain, aka Moglai Bap (right) . Pic: Reuters
A reveller wears a balaclava in the colours of the Irish flag. Pic: Reuters
They started with a montage of news readers covering O hAnnaidh’s charge. “Has anybody been watching the news?” bandmate Naoise O Caireallain joked.
They also thanked Glastonbury organisers Michael Eavis and daughter Emily for not bowing to pressure to remove them from the bill.
Earlier on Saturday, the BBC confirmed they would not be live-streaming the set but said the performance is likely to be made available on-demand later.
It is understood the performance will need to be reviewed beforehand.
O hAnnaidh outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London earlier this month. Pic: PA
Liam Og O hAnnaidh, also known as Liam O’Hanna – or by his stage name Mo Chara, was charged with a terror offence in May and appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court earlier this month.
Outside the court, he and bandmates Naoise O Caireallain and JJ O Dochartaigh were cheered by hundreds of supporters.
O hAnnaidh is accused of displaying a flag in support of the proscribed group Hezbollah at a gig in London last November, after video footage circulated online.
He was released on bail ahead of a second court appearance in August.
One of the band’s lawyers said they would always “defend not only their rights, but the rights of artists and people all around the world”.
Supporters gathered outside the court. Pic: PA
On social media, O hAnnaidh and the band denied support for Hezbollah after the charge was announced, but the trio are unwavering in their support for Palestinians and speaking out against the war in Gaza.
But as the band were removed from other festivals, there were calls from some for them to be taken off the bill at Glastonbury, too – with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer saying he thought they should be axed.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch also said the BBC “should not be showing” the trio’s set in a post on social media last week.
Kneecap have the support of dozens of musicians including Massive Attack, Pulp, Primal Scream and Paul Weller, who signed an open letter in May saying there had been a “concerted attempt to censor and ultimately de-platform” the group.
Read more:
‘Prime ministers and pop music don’t go together’
Lewis Capaldi plays emotional ‘secret’ set at Glastonbury
Robbie Williams addresses Glastonbury rumours
Kneecap released their first single in 2017 and built a loyal fanbase in the following years.
They rose to wider prominence in 2024 following the release of their debut album and award-winning eponymous film – a fictionalised retelling of how the band came together and their fight to save the Irish language.
Entertainment
Robbie Williams addresses Glastonbury rumours – as excitement builds for ‘secret’ sets
Pulp tried to quash the rumours, Robbie Williams was happy to fuel them – sharing a picture of a blue plaque in his name apparently slapped over a famous Glastonbury sign, before seemingly backtracking.
“30 years later…” he captioned his first social media post early on Friday morning – a reference to his headline-grabbing attendance in 1995.
This was the year Williams was famously pictured partying with Oasis‘s Liam and Noel Gallagher, shunning the boyband shackles with bleached-blonde hair and a blacked-out tooth. The writing was on the wall, and the announcement of his departure from Take That came just a few weeks later.
At Glastonbury this year, is the writing quite literally on the wall for a comeback?
Well, maybe not. A few hours after his post, Williams shared another, less cryptic message to say he would not be performing, along with his list of recommended acts to go and see – The 1975, Busta Rhymes, Charli XCX, Self Esteem and Reverend And The Makers, if you’re interested.
Is he bluffing? Double-bluffing? Who knows, but along with celeb spotting and mud, if there’s one topic of conversation that makes headlines when it comes to Glastonbury, it’s speculation about secret artists. Williams has got everybody talking.
Even before his posts, the Let Me Entertain You singer was among the artists rumoured to be performing secret sets this year, along with Pulp and Haim. Lewis Capaldi and Lorde too, with both “TBA” acts turning out to huge crowds on Friday.
Liam Gallagher And Robbie Williams at Glastonbury Festival in 1995. Pic: Brian Rasic/Getty Images
In recent years, these surprise sets have turned into some of the event’s most memorable moments – think Foo Fighters as “The ChurnUps” in 2023, Pulp’s comeback in 2011, and Lady Gaga treating fans to a small performance in one of the festival’s after hours areas, Shangri-La, in 2009.
Franz Ferdinand, famous for hits including Take Me Out and Do You Want To in the mid-2000s, were the first to do it back in 2008. This was actually due to Pete Doherty’s band Babyshambles pulling out last-minute, but the approach to announcing the switch was, at the time, a novel one.
While officially, the act was “TBA”, frontman Alex Kapranos wasn’t great at keeping the secret, worried people might not turn up. He and bandmates handed out fliers, and word spread.
Franz Ferdinand played the first ever big ‘secret’ set back in 2008. Pic: Yui Mok/ PA
“We played on the Park Stage and we thought, ‘nobody’s going to know we’re playing’,” Kapranos told Sky News ahead of a return performance on Friday. “It actually ended up being one of the most amazing gigs we’ve ever played, people were so up for it and going crazy.
“We weren’t keeping it secret. We were walking about like, ‘we’re playing later on, check it out’. We’re a band from Glasgow called Franz Ferdinand.”
These now not-so-secret performances have become bigger and bigger as each festival rolls around, with leaks making headlines in the run-up to the event.
Providing handy tips and hints – and often eventually confirmation, just in time for fans to be in position – is the Secret Glasto team. They have no official ties to Glastonbury, but over the years have become a reliable source of information.
The account’s founder, who now works in a team of six, spoke to us on site – incognito, of course.
“We’ve got our own sources and we can start checking things because we’ve now had enough years that we can check in with several people,” he said. “And they trust us because we are quite sensible with when we time announcements, which I think is the key thing.”
Sometimes acts themselves will confirm, they said. Their success rate for predictions is “in the low 90%” – but dragged down mainly by inexperience in their first year, which was 2014.
Capaldi’s comeback yesterday, two years after struggling on stage at Glastonbury in 2023, was a special moment.
“It was really, really heartwarming to see him get back up,” Secret Glasto said. “There was such goodwill in the crowd and it was just magical. It’s just what secret sets should be about.”
Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker performing on the Park Stage for a secret set at Glastonbury 2011. Pic: AP/ Mark Allan
On Saturday evening, a non-existent act called Patchwork have a pretty important billing just before Raye and then headliner Neil Young on the Pyramid Stage.
Pulp keyboard player Candida Doyle dampened rumours by reportedly saying in an interview earlier this month Glastonbury “weren’t interested” in booking the band.
But is this true?
“It happens a few times,” Secret Glasto said, of artists maybe telling little white lies to keep the secret for as long as possible. “They’ve got to keep the suspense somehow…
“Sources that we got for Pulp were really, really strong. It’s just so exciting for us, for the whole team. This is the most exciting secret set that Glastonbury’s ever done.”
Read more:
Glastonbury performers criticise political interference
Sanchez shares picture with Bezos as they tie the knot
It’s a fine balance – not spoiling the surprise but giving fans enough time to get where they want to be. When a festival is this big – home to around 200,000 people over the weekend – at a lot of stages, fans need to be in place early.
“The point is to always make sure people can get to the set if they wanted to.” But if a huge artist is going to surprise fans on a very small stage, sometimes they have to keep schtum for safety concerns over huge crowds. “Sometimes we’re like, we can’t print this.”
So, will Williams be playing? The rumour is that he could be joining his mate Rod Stewart, who is performing on the Pyramid Stage in the “legends” slot on Sunday.
“Robbie Williams entered this area without accreditation, authorisation, or alignment with prevailing taste,” according to the blue plaque in his social media tease, of his attendance in 1995. “His presence was uninvited, unofficial and ultimately inevitable.”
In his candid documentary series, and biopic Better Man, both released last year, Williams has been open about his struggles with fame and imposter syndrome, and how as an artist known for pop he craved respect from those seen as more credible at a time when indie music reigned.
Officially this year, there is no Robbie Williams on the line-up. Unofficially, who knows? But 30 years since his partying with the Gallaghers, pop music is embraced – and there would be a lot of love for the star if he did make an appearance now.
Lewis Capaldi has made an emotional comeback with a “secret” performance at Glastonbury – two years after announcing a break from the spotlight, where he struggled on stage at the festival.
After revealing his new song, Survive, earlier in the day, Capaldi took to the Pyramid Stage and surveyed the huge crowd in front of him as he launched into his 2019 hit, Before You Go.
“Glastonbury, how you doing?” was the simple introduction after the first chorus, and then came his second song, Grace.
Fan support for Lewis Capaldi was clear. Pic: PA
Before the next one, the Scottish star took it all in again and told the audience: “Glastonbury, it’s so good to be back… I’m not going to say much up here today because if I do, I’ll probably start crying.”
But, he added, he wanted to thank his fans, and “finish what I couldn’t the first time round”.
Along with the headliners and the Sunday afternoon “legends slots”, secret sets from the likes of Foo Fighters, The Killers, and Radiohead have become some of the most talked-about performances at Glastonbury in recent years.
This time round, there had been much speculation about some of the big unannounced slots on the bill – in particular the TBA act scheduled to appear on the festival’s main stage, the Pyramid Stage, just before Alanis Morissette on Friday afternoon.
With various clues trailed on social media and in Glasgow, where Capaldi was born, and Castle Cary, near Glastonbury, by the time Capaldi walked on stage, it was in reality no secret to all but a few of the huge crowd that had turned out for the “surprise”.
Lewis Capaldi performing on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. Pic: PA
The 28-year-old acknowledged the absurdity of his set being “TBA”, describing it as the “worst kept secret” and joking: “I don’t know who’s been f*****g telling people.”
There were chants of “Oh, Lewis Capaldi!” from the crowd before he began his next songs, including Hold Me While You Wait, Bruises, Forget Me, and Someone You Loved.
Read more: Glastonbury performers criticise political interference in festival
👉 Listen to Sky News Daily on your podcast app 👈
His performance was more than just a surprise set.
A few months before his last appearance at Glastonbury, again on the Pyramid Stage, in 2023, Capaldi had released the all-access documentary, How I’m Feeling Now.
It showed his rise from viral hit-maker to a star whose debut album, Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent, became the biggest-selling in the UK in its year of release – and the year after, too.
No mean feat when you consider his competition – Ed Sheeran was second in 2019 and Harry Styles in 2020.
Capaldi on stage at the festival in 2023. Pic: PA
Fans have always loved Capaldi not just for his talent as a singer and songwriter, but for his class-clown humour and his unfiltered, indifferent style.
But his sense of humour and anti-celebrity attitude masked struggles with his mental health and Tourette’s, which he spoke about candidly in the film.
At Glastonbury in 2023, the strain was clear.
Prior to the performance, he had cancelled several shows to rest and recover. On stage, he apologised as he prepared to belt out his hit song Someone You Loved.
“I’m going to be honest, everybody, but I’m starting to lose my voice up here, but we’re going to keep going and we’re going to go until the end,” he told the crowd.
“I just need you all to sing with me as loud as you can, if that’s okay?”
Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now. Pic: Netflix
And of course they did, the voices of tens of thousands of people carrying him through.
In a statement afterwards, the star said the sentiment had meant “the world”, before announcing a break for “the foreseeable future”.
“I used to be able to enjoy every second of shows like this, and I’d hoped three weeks away would sort me out,” he said.
“But the truth is I’m still learning to adjust to the impact of my Tourette’s and on Saturday it became obvious that I need to spend much more time getting my mental and physical health in order, so I can keep doing everything I love for a long time to come.”
In May, Capaldi performed his first show in two years – a charity gig in Edinburgh to raise funds for the Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm), a mental health charity he has supported over the years.
For most artists, playing the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury is a dream. Now, Capaldi has achieved it once again – this time, fans didn’t need to help him with the sing-along, but of course they joined him anyway. The love from the audience was clear.
“How far will you go to get back to the place you belong?” is one of the lines from Survive.
With this performance, Capaldi showed that this, one of the world’s most famous stages, is still that place for him.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike