Jack Lawrence

Thank you very much.

I very much appreciate your time, sir.

Thank you very much indeed.

Before every flight, we carefully walk through the safety procedures.

Seatbelts, oxygen masks, emergency exits, what to do if the cabin fills with smoke, what to do if there's a water landing.

But there's one scenario that's never discussed.

No safety card explains what to do if someone were to take control of the plane.

For most of us, hijackings feel like something from another era, something associated with the headlines of the 1970s, or something that only truly entered public consciousness after September 11, 2001.

It's not something passengers actively prepare for, and it's certainly not something anyone expects to experience firsthand.

In 1986, even less so.

Air travel was different then.

Security was looser.

Doors to the cockpit weren't reinforced.

The idea that an ordinary commercial flight could suddenly turn into a hostage situation wasn't part of the average passenger's mental checklist.

And yet, for Michael Thexton and the rest of the passengers and crew aboard Lufthansa Flight 73, that unimaginable scenario became a reality before the plane's wheels had even left the runway.

Pan Am Flight 73 was a Pan American World Airlines flight from Bombay, India to New York City, with scheduled stops in Karachi, Pakistan and Frankfurt, West Germany.

On September 5th, 1986, the Boeing 747 was hijacked while on the ground at Karachi by four armed Palestinian militants of the Abu Nidal organisation.

And they wanted one thing.

For that flight to take off, taking them to Cyprus and then on to Israel to pick up Palestinian prisoners.

But luckily for Michael and the rest of the 359 passengers, the plane would never make it off that tarmac.