Jet Hijacking’s Bloody End : Plane Stormed After Gunmen Open Fire; 7 Killed : Californian One of Dead in Pakistan

Four Arab hijackers suddenly opened fire today inside a Pan Am jet where they had held about 400 hostages for more than 17 hours. Officials said five passengers and two gunmen died in a shoot-out with security forces who captured the plane.

Reporters and medical workers estimated that at least 100 were wounded.

The other two gunmen were captured, said Khurshid Manwar Mirza, director general of the Civil Aviation Administration.

One American, Rajesh Kumar of Huntington Beach, Calif., was fatally shot early in the hijacking. According to Pan Am, 41 other Americans were aboard the jet.

“They opened fire wildly. Children were crying. The plane was a holocaust,” Hussain Shaffi of Washington told Associated Press correspondent G. G. LaBelle.

Taken by Surprise

An Associated Press reporter who was beside the jetliner said security forces were taken by surprise when the hijackers began firing inside the cabin with automatic weapons.

A wounded passenger told the AP as he was being lifted into an ambulance: “All of a sudden they started firing. Nobody was expecting it.”

Terrified and wounded passengers streamed off the jet. Some said that they heard noises outside the plane and that the plane’s lights went out just before the firing started. Others reported explosions and smoke on the plane.

Senior Police Supt. Altaf Ali Khan told the Associated Press that the hijackers apparently panicked when the plane’s lights abruptly went out.

He said a police party that was near the plane to negotiate approached to investigate why the lights failed. A hand grenade was tossed at them and they heard the hijackers open fire on the passengers, he said.

The police then rushed the plane, he said.

Plane Surrounded by Blood

The troops led crying and screaming passengers off the plane, which was surrounded by pools of blood.

In New York, Pan Am spokesman Alan Loflin said the lights went out because an auxiliary engine that provided electricity ran out of fuel. He said someone on the jet then opened an emergency door and passengers began escaping down a slide. The hijackers then opened fire, he said.

As Pakistani army commandos led one hijacker away, he yelled to reporters that he was a “Palestinian commando.”

“I am from Lebanon! I am a Palestinian!” he screamed.

At least 26 ambulances rushed to the plane. Many women and children were among the injured.

The gunmen, armed with machine guns and grenades, seized the New York-bound Boeing 747 at about 5 a.m. and demanded to be flown to Cyprus. They said they wanted to free Palestinian hijackers jailed there, according to Pakistani officials.

Crew Had Escaped

They set a deadline of 11 p.m. (11 a.m. PDT) for an American flight crew to board the plane, but the deadline had not been reached when the shooting began. Shortly before the outbreak of gunfire, Civil Aviation Administration Director General Khurshid Manwar Mirza said a Pan Am flight crew was flying in from Frankfurt, West Germany. The plane’s original three-member flight crew escaped through an emergency hatch in the cockpit when the gunmen seized the plane.

In Cyprus and Lebanon, conflicting claims were made linking the gunmen to pro-Libyan and pro-Iranian groups.

The gunmen, dressed as airport security guards, seized Flight 73 after it arrived from Bombay, India, en route to West Germany.

Scores of people were boarding at the time, and at least 30 fled in terror as the gunmen ran up the steps of the plane firing shots that wounded two baggage loaders. One of the loaders is in critical condition with a head wound, officials said.

Pakistani army commandos surrounded the aircraft, and senior military officials took charge of operations from the control tower.

Huntington Beach Man

The hijackers shot Kumar and threw him onto the Tarmac. The government said he died while being operated on at Jinnah Hospital.

(At the Huntington Beach home of the slain man, Satish Kumar said his 29-year-old brother had made the trip to pick up his grandmother and his aunt, Times staff writer Steve Emmons reported. The women were believed by relatives to have been on board the jetliner, Kumar said.

(“He’d just become an American citizen,” Kumar said of his brother. “He was very proud of it.”

(Rajesh Kumar was in the business of buying and selling hotels, his brother said.)

A government spokesman said the leader of the hijackers, known only as “Mustapha” gave no reason for Kumar’s shooting, saying only that they were operating in a “highly charged atmosphere.”

2 Groups Claim Hijacking

An unknown group identifying itself as the Libyan Revolutionary Cells telephoned a Western news agency in Cyprus and claimed responsibility for the hijacking. They said they wanted the plane to land in Cyprus to negotiate the release of Arab prisoners held in Nicosia, that nation’s capital.

Two Palestinians are serving life sentences in Cyprus for the murder of three Israelis on a yacht a year ago. Israel responded by bombing Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters on Oct. 1.

In Beirut, a group called Jundullah, or Soldiers of God, also claimed responsibility.

Libya’s state-run Tripoli radio, monitored in Nicosia, said the government of Moammar Kadafi had no role in the hijacking.

Pamela Hanlon, another Pan Am spokeswoman in New York, said there were 345 passengers and 13 crew members on the plane. Officials in Pakistan, however, said there were 389 passengers and 15 flight attendants.

The flight was scheduled to arrive at Kennedy International Airport at 3:25 p.m. EDT today, according to Pan Am.