A British man who was aboard the Pan Am 73 plane when armed terrorists stormed it in a 1986 attack that killed 21 people has confronted the man who held him at gunpoint.
Mike Thexton, then 27, was returning from Karachi in Pakistan after spending the summer hiking in the Himalayas when a Palestinian terror cell hijacked the plane.
The jet never left the runaway and for 16 terrifying hours, Mike and 400 others were held captive by the four men, who were armed with rifles and hand grenades.
The boss of the terrorist group Zaid Hassan Abd Latif Safarini intended to fly the plane into an Israeli military target, likely killing all on board, but the pilots escaped through a hatch before they could break into the cockpit.
Mike begged for his life to be spared during the attack and always wondered why he had survived. He was stunned to discover why one of the terrorists chose to spare him after more than three decades of questioning.
Mike Thexton, who was 27 at the time of his ordeal, was called to the front of the plane and begged the terrorists not to kill him.
Terrorist Zaid Hassan Abd Latif Safarini of the dreaded terror group Abu Nidal spoke to Mike last summer to reveal why he didn’t kill him
After boarding the ill-fated flight, the Briton first realized something was wrong when he screamed on board. He then saw a man struggling with a flight attendant while holding a gun to her head.
Mike’s name was one of the first mentioned by the terrorists, who targeted Western tourists, and they held him at the front of the plane before slaughtering 21 people and injuring more than 100 others.
The terrorists first killed a passenger after failed attempts to negotiate for a pilot to return to the plane.
But despite being ‘convinced’ he was going to die, Mike – now 63 – managed to survive the encounter with just a ‘scratch’ to his elbow.
After being held at the front for hours, he fell asleep – before being awakened by one of the terrorists and ordered to return to the rest of the group.
Nearly 37 years after the nightmare in which 360 passengers were held captive, he relives his ordeal in a Sky News documentary airing tonight.
Mike had visited the Himalayas in honor of his brother, Peter, 30, who died three years earlier while climbing Broad Peak, the 12th highest mountain in the world.
In Sky’s new documentary, Hijacked: Flight 73, he says he begged his captor not to kill him: “Please, please don’t hurt me.” My brother died in the mountains, my parents have no one else’.
Mike said, “He just waved his hand as if to say, I don’t have time for that.”
Speaking to MailOnline, Mike revealed how his brother’s death had touched the heart of Safarini – who is currently serving a 160-year prison sentence in the US.
Mike spoke to the terrorist on a phone call last summer, demanding to know why his life had been spared all those years ago.
Safarini’s response was breathtaking: “You told me your brother was killed,” he said in broken English. “I say, ‘Okay man, sit aside for a moment.’ It actually touched my heart.’
“I was surprised he told me he put me back with the others at the end because of what I said about my brother’s death,” he told MailOnline.
Wounded victims are evacuated to a US military hospital in Germany after the 16-hour siege
The jet never left the runaway and for 16 terrifying hours, Mike and 400 others were held captive by the four men, who were armed with rifles and hand grenades.
The Pan Am Flight 73 plane pictured after the siege ended – terrorists killed 21 and injured 100 more
Passengers were held at gunpoint during a 16-hour ordeal, always leaving Mike wondering why his life was spared
Mike’s older brother Peter had been killed while climbing Broad Peak, the 12th highest mountain in the world
Mike introduced himself during his summer hiking before the hijacking
“When I said that 12 hours earlier, I didn’t even think he was listening.
And yet he remembered 12 hours later, at the end of the hijacking, and 36 years later when we spoke.
“I had thought of a number of possible reasons why he would give me that chance, but these had never crossed my mind.
“And he said they opened fire because they were panicking, and that’s the first time I’ve heard him admit that. Both answers were important to me.’
During his ordeal, Mike had tried to connect with his attackers in another way – by pretending to be a Muslim and praying.
After 10 hours the plane’s engine failed and it became dark. Then all hell broke loose, with the terrorists opening fire and killing passengers.
“The plane fell into darkness after the engine failed. Then – bang! I remember it started with the explosion of a hand grenade,” he told MailOnline.
“Then—automatic gunfire from a few rows in front of me, impossibly loud. Then – automatic gunfire from the rear of the plan, surprisingly distant and silent.
“The men at the front switched their magazines and fired again, then again at the rear. And then – it couldn’t have been quiet, but it had been so loud I only remember the silence. I saw the shape of a door – the night sky a different shade of black – and realized it was time to leave.”
Sunshine Vesuwala was a flight attendant who also survived the hijacking.
Now 58, a business owner in Ontario, Canada, and a mother of two, she had completed her education just months earlier.
Sunshine Vesuwala had completed her flight attendant training a few months before the hijacking
Sunshine was hailed as a hero after the attack and credited with saving lives after she refused to hand over Westerners’ passports
Bullet holes in the plane’s windshield showed the violence of the attack
Within moments of the start of the hijacking, a gun was pointed at her head and then at her back as the terrorists in military uniforms attempted to storm the cockpit.
She was later ordered by Safarini to walk the aisles to collect passports. She tells Sky, “I had to try not to give him what he wanted. If they were white Americans, I dropped their passports [back] thrown into their lap. I hid passports under the seat as he demanded [I] filter through it.’
“It was a gamble and it could have easily gone the other way had I been caught,” she added in an interview with MailOnline.
She talked about when the terrorists started killing people and continued: ‘My first thought was that we were all going to die. When the shooting stopped and I was still alive, I noticed that the door closer to me was open and people were running for the exit.
“I watched and waited until I could go the same way and get on the wing.
“People jumped off the wing and others who couldn’t, stayed behind. There were too many people to control and direct, so I let them jump off if they wanted to.
“They were really panicked and there was no stopping them. Some passengers noticed me there and grabbed me to ask for help.’
Sunshine was praised for her bravery and said her decision not to hand over Western tourists’ passports saved lives.
She also stayed on the plane to get passengers and injured colleagues to safety.
She insisted she’s not a hero, telling MailOnline: ‘My uniform meant I was responsible for my passengers, I couldn’t just dump them and run. They were helpless, some badly injured and very traumatized. My conscience wouldn’t let me leave.’
The gunmen and their accomplices were sentenced to death in Pakistan and later given life sentences.
Safarini was then released from Pakistan prison, but two weeks after 9/11 he was captured by the FBI and taken to the US, where he pleaded guilty to 95 charges, including murder.
Hijacked: Flight 73 will be broadcast on Saturday, April 29 at 9:20 p.m. on Sky Documentaries and streaming service NOW