Michael Thexton

It was an extraordinary performance.

And

When you find out, as I found out many years later, that this was an incredibly inexperienced cabin crew.

They had all been recruited in Mumbai.

They were all Indians.

They'd been recruited the previous year.

Some of them had flown eight times, nine times, a handful of times, and this was what they had to deal with.

Everybody looking around, I mean, I was looking around thinking, who's in front of me?

This is a very brutal thing to think, but it's very comforting.

Sitting next to me were two people who looked to me to be North American.

And so the next announcement was, ladies and gentlemen, will Mr. Michael John please come to the front of the plane?

So she went upstairs.

By the time she got to the top of the stairs, in front of the hijacker...

she realised that she needed to give the pilot time to escape.

I was telling myself, stay calm, make yourself inconspicuous.

And I burst out laughing.

I mean, I was probably close to fairly uncontrollable hysterics.

I said, I haven't got a gun.

You've got all the guns around here.

And he said, kneel here.