In the midst of summer, July 12, the planet celebrates World Civil Aviation Flight Attendant Day.
It is these charming girls who ensure the comfort of air transportation, and in case of danger they are the first to come to the aid of passengers. About the heroic flight attendants who managed not to lose their heads in a difficult situation - in today's review of MN.
Nadezhda Kurchenko: life for passengers
History knows many cases when flight attendants, at the cost of their own lives, saved passengers from inevitable death. In our country, the most famous was the feat of Nadezhda Kurchenko, who in 1970, at the age of 19, entered into a fight with terrorists that cost her her life.
On that ill-fated day, October 15, 1970, an Aeroflot passenger plane with 46 passengers and 5 crew members made a flight from Batumi to Sukhumi. Nothing foreshadowed trouble.
The plane was supposed to be in the air for only about half an hour. However, fate decreed otherwise. As soon as the An-24 took off from the runway, one of the passengers asked Nadezhda Kurchenko to immediately hand over a black envelope to the crew commander.
The girl, sensing danger, went to the cockpit to warn the crew commander about the strange passenger. But the attacker abruptly got up and rushed after the stewardess, taking a revolver from his coat pocket. To her misfortune, Nadezhda turned around and saw that an armed criminal was following her.
The girl instantly slammed the door to the cockpit, having managed to shout that there was an armed man on board. The terrorist came close to the stewardess and categorically demanded to let him in to the pilots. Hope answered with a categorical refusal. A fight ensued.
The pilots, having assessed the situation, tried to help Nadezhda by laying several sharp turns so that the criminal would fall. Unfortunately it didn't work. During the fight, the terrorist shot Nadezhda in the thigh. But even having received a serious wound, the girl continued to resist.
In this situation, two passengers tried to help Nadezhda. But the terrorist's neighbor, who turned out to be his son, jumped up and defiantly opened his cloak, under which he hid a bunch of grenades. The teenager promised that if one of the passengers moved, he would blow up the plane.
At that moment, his father, having lost patience, shot the stewardess in the stomach and burst into the cockpit. The shootout continued. The terrorist ordered the wounded crew members to fly the plane to Turkey. Bleeding, the crew commander Giorgi Chakhrakia miraculously managed to reach the Turkish coast, but the co-pilot Shavidze had to land the car.
The saddest thing is that the Turkish authorities, having arrested the terrorists, who turned out to be 46-year-old Pranas Brazinskas and his 13-year-old son Algirdas, Lithuanians by origin, refused to extradite them to the USSR. In the Soviet Union, the elder Brazinskas was expected to be shot, and in Turkey he received only eight years in prison, his son was sent to prison for two years. After their release, the criminals moved to the United States.
True, in 2002, a just punishment nevertheless overtook the terrorists. During a quarrel, the younger Brazinskas beat his 77-year-old father to death with a bat, for which he received 16 years in prison.
And Nadezhda Kurchenko was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner for her heroism.
Oleg Kosmachev: took out more than twenty people
Talking about the heroism of fragile flight attendants, it would be unfair to ignore the men who work as flight attendants on flights.
As the history of passenger air transportation has shown, male flight attendants are indispensable in emergency landings. During such emergencies, it is necessary to help passengers leave the damaged aircraft in a matter of minutes.
In a critical situation at Samara airport on March 17, 2007, when the Tu-134 caught runway, rolled over and fell apart, flight attendant Oleg Kosmachev was not taken aback. During the incident, six people died, 23 were injured, and the plane caught fire.
Oleg squeezed out the emergency hatch and helped the passengers get out. Then, risking his life, the man returned to the burning liner in order to carry out one by one those passengers who could not move independently, including several children.
According to rescuers, more than twenty people should thank Oleg Kosmachev for the saved lives. Moreover, saving others, the flight attendant did not think about himself at all, although the doctors discovered that he had a spinal injury, as well as burns of the respiratory tract. Fortunately, after the treatment, the health of the hero flight attendant was fully restored.
Neerja Bhanot: a bullet for a model
All over the world, the job of a flight attendant is considered one of the most romantic. Sometimes, leaving the fashion podium, elegant girls continue their careers as flight attendants, not even knowing what dangers they may be exposed to. 
An example is the story of Indian Nirja Bhanot, who changed her job as a professional model to become a flight attendant for Pan American World Airways on the Mubai-New York route.
During one of the flights on September 5, 1986, while landing in Karachi, the plane was hijacked by four Islamists.
361 passengers and 19 crew members were taken hostage. The criminals demanded that the plane immediately take off and head for Cyprus. Further events unfolded like in an action movie.
The flight attendant managed to warn the crew members, who immediately left the plane through the hatch in the cockpit. Upon learning of this, the criminals were furious. They figured out an American among the passengers, dragged him to the entrance hatch and, shooting at point-blank range, threw him onto the runway. Similarly, they promised to do with all US citizens who were on board the aircraft.
Upon hearing this, 22-year-old Neerja Bhanot ordered the rest of the flight attendants to discreetly collect passports from the Americans and hide them in the plane's garbage chute. After 17 hours of negotiations with the terrorists, the security forces began to storm the plane. In the turmoil of the battle, Neerja Bhanot, at the risk of being killed, opened the escape hatch and managed to get almost all the captured passengers out of the plane.
When the stewardess was about to leave the aircraft herself, she suddenly saw three small children. Despite the danger, the girl returned to the salon and saved the kids.
Unfortunately, the terrorists noticed her. A burst from a machine gun interrupted Nirja's life. But even dying, the stewardess continued to fulfill her professional duty, covering the American boy with her body.
Thanks to the feat of the girl, 359 hostages out of 380 people on board the aircraft were saved. Posthumously, the stewardess was awarded the most prestigious award in India - the Ashoka Chakra Order. 
Sheila Frederick: Against the Slavers
Modern history knows cases when flight attendants assisted people in situations that seemed to be far from their direct duties. A similar story happened in 2011 with Sheila Frederick, who worked as a flight attendant on a flight from Seattle to San Francisco with Alaska Airlines.
The stewardess, as usual, performed her duties, bypassing the passengers and offering them help. Suddenly, the attention of the woman was attracted by an elderly man traveling with a girl of 14-15 years old.
For some unknown reason, he forbade his companion to talk to the stewardess, answer her questions and even look up. The contrast in the clothes of a strange couple stood out sharply. The man was dressed expensively and solidly, while the girl looked disheveled and untidy.
Seizing the moment when the girl's companion was distracted, Sheila leaned over to her and offered to go to the restroom, where a note was left for her. If the girl needed outside help, she had to write an answer.
The stewardess was not mistaken: a young passenger told her that she had been kidnapped by traffickers. At the airport, the slave trader was arrested by the police, and the girl was sent to college.
Dmitry Sokolov.
FOTOLIA,
TASS/I. Chokhonelidze,
INDIATIMES.COM
It happened on September 5, 1986 in Pakistan, in the city of Karachi. Then a group of radical Islamists hijacked a Pan American plane. And if not for the brave stewardess Nirzhda Bhanot, hundreds of people would have died. However, this girl didn't hesitate to sacrifice her life to save others.
Neerja graduated from high school and studied in Mumbai. For some time she worked as a model and represented many well-known brands. In March 1985, Neerja was given in marriage by agreement between her parents, but her husband was dissatisfied with the dowry and returned his wife back two months later. After an unsuccessful marriage, Neerja decided to work as a flight attendant for Pan American.
Aircraft hijacking
Bhanot was the senior flight attendant on Flight PA 73. When the plane, which took off from Mumbai, landed in the Pakistani city of Karachi at 05:00, four armed terrorists took the passengers and crew hostage. Neerja got her bearings instantly: she managed to warn the pilots, after which they left the plane through the emergency hatch.
At first, the terrorists shot everyone who called himself an American, then demanded that the passengers surrender their passports, intending to execute the remaining US citizens, but the brave stewardess hid the documents in the garbage chute, which is why the Islamists did not kill anyone else: they could not identify the Americans by eye.
As Pakistani police stormed the plane, Neerja took advantage of the turmoil to evacuate all the passengers. She was not embarrassed by either shots or grenade explosions. Before leaving the plane, she noticed three children hiding behind the seats, who were afraid to get out.
The girl returned, but she was noticed - the terrorists opened fire. Neerja covered the children with her body and was mortally wounded, however, before she died, she managed to evacuate these passengers as well. And only then did she die. By the way, one of the boys she rescued grew up and became a pilot.
Neerja Bhanot was posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest award for bravery in times of peace, and is the youngest person to receive it.
This was the first case in the USSR of capturing a passenger aircraft of such a scale (hijacking). It was, in fact, the beginning of a long-term series of similar tragedies that spattered the skies of the whole world with the blood of innocent people.
And it all started like this.
An-24 took off from the Batumi airfield on October 15, 1970 at 12:30. Course - to Sukhumi. There were 46 passengers and 5 crew members on board the aircraft. Scheduled flight time is 25-30 minutes.
But life broke both the schedule and the schedule.
At the 4th minute of the flight, the plane sharply deviated from the course. The radio operators requested the board - there was no answer. Communication with the control tower was interrupted. The plane was leaving towards close Turkey.
Military and rescue boats went to sea. Their captains were ordered to follow at full speed to the site of a possible disaster.
The board did not respond to any of the requests. A few more minutes - and the An-24 left the airspace of the USSR. And in the sky over the Turkish coastal airfield of Trabzon, two rockets flashed - red, then green. It was an emergency landing signal. The plane touched the concrete pier of a foreign air harbor. Telegraph agencies around the world immediately reported that a Soviet passenger plane had been hijacked. The flight attendant was killed, there are wounded. Everything.
BLACK ENVELOPE
I flew to the place of emergency in a few hours. He flew, not knowing either the circumstances of the drama or the name of the murdered flight attendant. Everything had to be found out on the spot.
Today, 45 years later, I intend to recount - at least briefly - the events of those days and again speak about Nadia Kurchenko, her courage and her heroism. To talk about the stunning reaction of millions of people of the so-called stagnant time to the sacrifice, courage, courage of a person. To tell about this, first of all, to the people of the new generation, the new computer consciousness, to tell how it was, because my generation remembers and knows this story, and most importantly - Nadya Kurchenko - and without reminders. And it would be useful for young people to know why many streets, schools, mountain peaks and even an airplane bear her name.
After takeoff, greetings and instructions to passengers, the flight attendant returned to her working room, a narrow compartment. She opened a bottle of Borjomi and, letting the water shoot up with sparkling tiny cannonballs, filled four plastic cups for the crew. Putting them on a tray, she entered the cabin.
The crew was always glad to have a beautiful, young, extremely benevolent girl in the cockpit. Probably, she felt this attitude towards herself and, of course, she was also happy. Perhaps, in this dying hour, she thought with warmth and gratitude about each of these guys, who easily accepted her into their professional and friendly circle. They treated her like a little sister, with care and trust.
Of course, Nadia was in a wonderful mood - everyone who saw her in the last minutes of her pure, happy life claimed.
Having drunk the crew, she returned to her compartment. At that moment, the bell rang: one of the passengers called the flight attendant. She approached. Passenger said:
Pass it on to the commander urgently, - and handed her some kind of envelope.
"ATTACK! HE'S ARMED!"
Nadia took the envelope. Their eyes must have met. She must have been surprised at the tone in which those words were spoken. But she did not find out anything, but stepped to the luggage compartment door - then there was the door of the pilot's cabin. Probably, Nadia's feelings were written on her face - most likely. And the sensitivity of the wolf, alas, surpasses any other. And, probably, it was precisely thanks to this sensitivity that the terrorist saw hostility in Nadia's eyes, a subconscious suspicion, a shadow of danger. This turned out to be enough for the sick imagination to announce the alarm: failure, verdict, exposure. Self-control failed: he literally catapulted out of his chair and rushed after Nadia.
She barely had time to take a step towards the cockpit when he flung open the door to her compartment, which had just been closed by it.
You can't come here! she screamed.
But he was coming closer, like the shadow of a beast. She realized that the enemy was in front of her. In the next second, he also understood: she would break all plans.
Nadia screamed again:
Return to your seat. You can't come here!
But he took out a weapon - the nerves burned to the ground. Nadia did not know his intentions. But I knew he was absolutely dangerous. Dangerous for the crew, dangerous for the passengers.
She clearly saw the revolver.
Opening the cockpit, she shouted to the crew with all her might:
Attack! He is armed!
And at the same moment, slamming the cabin door, she turned around to face the bandit, enraged by such a course of affairs, and prepared for an attack. He, as well as the crew, heard her words - no doubt.
What was left to do? Nadya made a decision not to let the attacker into the cockpit at any cost. Any!
BATTLE AT THE LAST LINE
He could be a maniac and shoot the crew. He could kill the crew and passengers. He could... She didn't know his actions, his intentions. And he knew: jumping towards her, he tried to knock her down. Leaning her hands against the wall, Nadya resisted and continued to resist.
The first bullet hit her in the thigh. She clung even tighter to the pilot's door. The terrorist tried to squeeze her throat. Nadia - knock out a weapon from his right hand. The stray bullet went through the ceiling. Nadia fought back with her feet, hands, even her head.
The crew assessed the situation instantly. The commander abruptly interrupted the right turn, in which they were at the moment of the attack, and immediately filled up the roaring car to the left, and then to the right. In the next second, the plane went up steeply: the pilots tried to knock down the attacker, believing that his experience in this matter was not great, and Nadia would hold on.
The passengers were still wearing seat belts - after all, the display did not go out, the plane was only gaining altitude.
The young man opened his gray cloak, and the passengers saw grenades - they were tied to their belts. "This is for you!" he shouted. "If anyone else gets up, we'll split the plane!"
In the cabin, seeing a passenger rushing to the cabin and hearing the first shot, several people instantly unfastened their belts and jumped out of their seats. Two of them were closest to the place where the criminal was sitting, and they were the first to feel the trouble. Galina Kiryak and Aslan Kaishanba, however, did not have time to take a step: they were outstripped by the one who was sitting next to the man who had escaped into the cabin. The young bandit - and he was much younger than the first, for they turned out to be father and son - grabbed a sawn-off shotgun and fired along the salon. The bullet whistled over the heads of the shocked passengers.
Don `t move! he yelled. - Do not move!
Pilots with even greater sharpness began to throw the plane from one position to another. The young man fired again. The bullet pierced the fuselage skin and went right through. Depressurization of the aircraft was not yet threatened - the height was insignificant.
The next moment after the second shot, the young man opened his gray cloak and people saw grenades - they were tied to his belt.
This is for you! he shouted. - If anyone else gets up - we will split the plane!
It was obvious that this was not an empty threat - if they failed, they had nothing to lose.
Meanwhile, despite the evolution of the plane, the older one remained on his feet and, with bestial fury, tried to tear Nadia away from the door of the pilot's cabin. He needed a leader. He needed a crew. He needed a plane.
Struck by Nadia's incredible resistance, enraged by his own impotence to cope with the wounded, bloody, fragile girl, he, without aiming, without thinking for a second, fired at point-blank range and, throwing the desperate defender of the crew and passengers into the corner of a narrow passage, burst into the cockpit. Behind him is his geek with a sawn-off shotgun.
To Turkey! To Turkey! Return to the Soviet coast - we will blow up the plane!
42 BULLETS ON THE CREW
Another bullet pierced the back of the commander - Grigory Chakhrakiya. In order to keep at least a little blood in his body, so as not to lose consciousness and not to drop the steering wheel from his hands, Grigory pressed himself against the back of the commander's chair with all his might. The next shot - a bullet paralyzes the right hand of the navigator Valery Fadeev and hits the chest. There is a communication microphone in his hand, Fadeev loses consciousness, no one can open his hand with a microphone - each of the crew members is already wounded, Nadia is dead.
There is no way out: the plane must not fall into the sea - there are 46 passengers in the cabin, there are children. The co-pilot sees: the commander still loses consciousness. Shavidze takes control - he drives the car, as in a nightmare: in a cabin filled with blood of friends, among screaming criminals, under the threat of a sawn-off shotgun and a revolver, under the threat of grenades.
When a Turkish coastal airfield appears in a gray dream of reality, it fires emergency rockets into the sky. And the plane, pierced by forty-two bullets, falls to the hard foreign ground...
LOOKING THROUGH THE YEARS
WHILE HOPE LIVES...
For courage and heroism, Nadezhda Kurchenko was awarded the military order of the Red Banner, a passenger plane, an asteroid, schools, streets, and so on were named after Nadia. But it should be said, apparently, and about something else.
The scale of state and public actions associated with an unprecedented event was enormous. Members of the State Commission, the USSR Foreign Ministry negotiated with the Turkish authorities for several days in a row without a single break.
It was necessary: to allocate an air corridor for the return of the hijacked aircraft; an air corridor for the transfer of injured crew members and those passengers who needed urgent medical care from Trabzon hospitals; of course, those who did not suffer physically, but ended up in a foreign land against their will; an air corridor was required for a special flight from Trabzon to Sukhumi with Nadia's body. Her mother had already flown to Sukhumi from Udmurtia.
There were many concerns. But all these dramatic actions could not alleviate the acute pain of the loss - Nadia remained at the center of any conversations of a huge country, television and radio programs, newspapers.
Marshal of Aviation, Minister of Civil Aviation of the USSR Boris Pavlovich Bugaev personally took part in the discussion of the issue of Nadia's funeral. I twice - due to circumstances - talked on the phone with the minister, who listened to wishes, advice, requests to meet Nadia's mother in Sukhumi, decide on the place of burial, and other actions. Could there be something similar in our hectic days - the concern of the minister of a superpower about the fate of the murdered flight attendant of a tiny non-commissioned flight?
No. Couldn't. In any case, I don't believe in it.
In Komsomolskaya Pravda, where I then worked (and was the first and only journalist from Moscow at the scene of the tragedy), in the first two weeks after even the censored reports, more than 12 thousand letters and telegrams came from shocked readers who mourned Nadya and admired her courage !
There was such a country. And there were such people. Is it possible today?
On the day of Nadia's funeral, over her coffin littered with flowers and over the heads of thousands of people following her coffin through the streets of the city, all the planes leaving for the flight shook their wings, demonstrating tribute to their protector, their young colleague, their heroine. In each of these planes, flight attendants tearfully told their passengers:
Look down while the city is visible. These people say goodbye to our friend. With our Nadia.
Do you believe that we are all the same?
Nadia’s mother, Henrietta Ivanovna, with whom I stood at Nadia’s coffin and who dryly and lifelessly repeated, looking at her daughter’s strikingly beautiful face: “Now you don’t laugh at me, you are serious with me,” handed me Nadia’s notes, notebooks, papers. Among them, I found the phrase of a 9th grade student, Nadezhda Kurchenko: "I want to be a worthy daughter of the Motherland and I am ready to give my life for this, if necessary."
I absolutely believe in these words that are familiar to hearing, but written by Nadia's hand and heart.
PAY
The bandits punished themselves
The terrorists turned out to be 46-year-old Lithuanian Pranas Brazinskas (pictured right), a former store manager from Vilnius, and his 13-year-old son Algirdas (left). The Turkish authorities refused to extradite the criminals to the USSR and condemned them themselves. The eldest received eight years, the youngest - two. After some time, both were released under an amnesty, and the bandits moved to Venezuela, and from there to the USA: they got off the plane in New York bound for Canada. The Lithuanian diaspora obtained permission to leave them in the country.
The Brazinskas settled in Santa Monica, California. In February 2002, 77-year-old Pranas had an argument with his son, for which he received several fatal blows with a bat. Algirdas was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
1973 The ballad "My Clear Star" flew around the Soviet Union like a dove. No one had any doubts: the song is dedicated to the young stewardess, forever remaining in the sky. Murdered three weeks before the wedding. And performed on behalf of her fiancé. The sad story is still replicated on the Internet to this day. However, this is just a beautiful legend...
Composer Vladimir Semenov: "Many people sang and sing this song. But it seems to me that Sasha Losev was and remains the best performer of it ..." Soloist of the student amateur ensemble, winner of the regional competition, where the main prize is the recording of his own record at the Melodiya company ...
The tragic halo that the song acquired, 22 years later, covered its first performer with a black cloud. Shortly before his departure, Losev admitted that before he sang "My Clear Star" with one subtext, now - in memory of his son who died early. And he summed up the sad result: "Inexplicably, the main song in the program became the main one in life."
The main song "Asterisk" became in the life of the composer Vladimir Semenov. He was already 35 years old. Behind Astrakhan, an automobile and road technical school, a home-made electric guitar and hundreds of kilometers on a battered bus that traveled around with concert teams of the Astrakhan Philharmonic...
“Of course, I remember the story of the hijacking of the plane, then they wrote a lot about Nadia’s feat,” says Semenov. “But, to be honest, I didn’t think about anything like that when I took out a small collection of poems from the Vologda poetess Olga Fokina from the store shelf. Literally 12- 13 pages printed on thin newsprint.I started flipping through them and suddenly came across the words "People's songs are different, but mine is one for ages." Something hooked me in these lines."
A song was born, which Semenov showed to his friend, composer Sergei Dyachkov. He brought Semenov to Stas Namin, who led the vocal and instrumental ensemble. They recorded a small disc, consisting of three compositions - Oscar Feltsman's song "Flowers Have Eyes", Sergei Dyachkov's song "Don't" and Vladimir Semenov's ballad "My Clear Star". It scattered across the country with a circulation of almost 7 million copies!
"After all the hassle - rehearsals, recordings - my wife and I went to rest in Sochi," composer Vladimir Semenov recalls today. Sasha Losev's voice: "People have different songs, but mine is one for centuries!"
Vologda poetess Olga Fokina wrote these lines a few years before the tragedy aboard the An-24. Lines about my own, very personal. Her famous countryman, writer Fyodor Abramov, said that Olga "is very close to life, she always has no fiction, no letters, no words in her poems - poems are generated by life itself ... they captivate, enchant you with sincerity, purity and immediacy of feelings" .
All those things that Nadya Kurchenko remembered and forever remained in the people's memory.
She was so young and so beautiful, she was so cheerful and cheerful, and she also loved Rajesh Khannu (knew phrases from all his films). She also loved to fly, loved her job and loved people. .
Every nation has its big and small heroes. The big ones are given annual honors, they are much talked about, admired and extolled. They are known to the whole world, which loves each of them in its own way with boundless, selfless, undivided love. But there are also little heroes, whose deeds often do not receive due publicity and only a few know about their feat. Thousands of such people, in fact, make up our history.
Great movie, very realistic. With Sonam Kapoor starring. her dad, Anil Kapoor, I think to this day I am proud of my daughter's work in this film and for the role of such a heroic girl as Neerja Bhanot . I (to my shame) learned about this story only last year, (when I recorded films for myself to watch, according to the filmography Sonam) although in India Neerja is a national hero, awarded the highest award for courage. And of course I started to read as much as possible about this story. And now I've finally looked at it. Impressions and emotions are simply overwhelming.
Sad movie, but a very wonderful story about a young, courageous, strong-willed girl who accomplished a great deed and feat. Filmed very realistic and believable. Such stories must be filmed, and they must be shown (because there are more and more of them every day, all over the world) about the exploits of people in the workplace, doing their duty, even if it threatens their own lives. A film that is few. A film about a man who is few You must definitely watch this film and see what kind of people are there in this world and so unfairly leave it ahead of time
Filming in a confined space is always harder, but the director managed to correctly convey the emotions and behavior of passengers and terrorists. In general, with a limited number of actions, the atmosphere of fear, horror and panic was felt quite clearly. When I watched the film, I reasoned that everyone has such different destinies but I will always admire such brave, strong, heroic people. Sometimes I think how I would behave in a similar situation and I don’t even know. Of all the people I personally (to one extent or another) know today, including myself, as Neerja , no one could do. And now, remembering my feelings when watching this film (I felt as if I myself was among these people-hostages), the whole essence shrinks into such a small coward, and sits somewhere deep inside, staring at the same tense faces of others. And if you still clearly imagine how one of these bearded men is brandishing a gun in front of your face, then your legs and arms instantly go numb, and panic begins. Terrorism is disgusting. I don't know any creatures in nature capable of such an act of cruelty, except humans.
A film about perseverance, philanthropy, courage and true heroism! Well directed, great acting. The film the drama was shot at the highest level full of feeling that the acting actors playing the characters are living their roles. A brave and resolute girl beyond her years in her heroism and selflessness everyone should remember such stories! I admire the feat Nirji !
The actors were great. Sonam is amazing in this role She lived it with every part of her soul. Unforgettable and the image created Shabanoy Azmi. She is a mother Nirji . All her tragedy, all her grief is simply indescribable, her eyes still stand before her eyes, and her words sound in her head. It is so realistic to play the grief of a mother who has lost and is forced to bury her child (at whatever age he may be) can only be played either by experiencing such a reality, or by being a genius. And what is shown in this case Shabana, I do not know. I hope the second.
Film enjoyment "Nirja" I didn’t get it for just one simple reason, the plot is too heavy (still has a lump in my throat) about the events that took place in reality, and about the heroine, who was young, beautiful, kind, caring, and who happened to be the eldest flight attendant on the ill-fated plane flight hijacked by terrorists. On September 7, the girl turned 23 years old, and such a tragedy occurred on her birthday. God forbid someone find themselves in such a situation sometime and anywhere. The film is shot very realistic, interesting, dramatic. All the time, together with the passengers of the airliner, I was in terrible tension, excitement and worry for the lives of everyone and everyone, especially when one psychopath terrorist yelled at everyone and brandished weapons in front of people. And it’s no joke, more than three hundred and fifty people on board, and everyone is in terrible danger, and there is no one to support them, except for the young flight attendants who remained on the plane after the flight of the crew, it turns out that this is how it should be according to the instructions. Perhaps this is correct, since in this way the plans of the terrorists who hijacked the plane break down. But on the other hand, passengers in such a situation are under a more terrible threat of death due to the alarmism of the psychopath and the cruelty of the terrorists who hijacked the plane.
At the beginning of the film, we get to a holiday with songs and dances, but this is only at the very beginning, and then you will forget about whose film it is, who shot it, you will just watch and experience. Recommended movie to watch even for those who are skeptical of Indian-made films. This film is not typical Indian. The actors did an excellent job and conveyed the drama of events well. The film is watched in one breath and causes a storm of emotions, and after viewing a bitter aftertaste remains.. For me, this is a sign of quality cinema. I love films based on real events. You can learn a lot of interesting things, something that would seem to have long gone down in history and forgotten.
The horrific incident happened 32 years ago. On September 5, in one of the cities of Pakistan, terrorists hijacked a passenger plane. If not for Neerja Bhanot, who was a flight attendant on that ill-fated plane, then all the passengers could have become victims.
Neerja gave her life so that other people would not die at the hands of terrorists.
The girl has a very ordinary story: she lived with her parents, graduated from high school and moved to Mumbai. At first, the stewardess tried herself in the modeling business and performed at shows, but soon the desire to be a model disappeared. A year before the terrible tragedy, Bhanot was married off by his parents, but the husband was dissatisfied with his daughter-in-law and soon the couple broke up. After some time, Neerja decided to become a flight attendant. The girl was interviewed by Pan American.
September 5 was the chief stewardess on board. In the morning the plane landed in the city of Karachi. It was there that the ship was seized by radical Islamists. But Neerja was able to warn the pilots about what had happened, they safely left the ship through the emergency exit.
While on the plane, the terrorists killed everyone who was an American citizen. After that, they forced all people to collect documents in order to kill the rest of the inhabitants of the United States. Our heroine managed to put the documents in the dumpster. That is why the Islamists no longer killed a single person, since it was impossible to identify US citizens without passports.
When the police stormed the ship, Neerja Bhanot reacted immediately and escorted the passengers out the emergency exit. But at the very end of the evacuation, she noticed several children who were sitting in fear behind the seats of the plane.
The terrorists saw the girl run to save the children and started shooting. The flight attendant managed to close the children with her body, but died. All passengers were evacuated thanks to Neerja.
Note! One of the rescued babies is now a pilot.
As you know, the girl was posthumously awarded the most significant award for the Indian people. Nirja was given the Ashoka Chakra order. Of course, this medal for courage will not bring the girl back to life, but it is a tribute to the man who sacrificed himself to save the passengers. Many passengers came to the grave of the girl more than once in order to honor the memory and once again say “Thank you” for that incredible act.
