A Bloody Weekend: The Terror and the Tragedy : Survivors of Pan Am Hijacking Return to L.A., Tell of Ordeal

Still wearing the looks of terror, and in some cases their bloodied clothes and bandages, Southern California survivors of the hijacking of Pan American Flight 73 began coming home Monday.

“We were helpless,” said Mary George, 37, of Norwalk. “We were ready to take what was coming, because there was nothing else we could do. We just kept praying.”

Mrs. George’s husband was one of several survivors who were brought off a Pan American World Airways jetliner at Los Angeles International Airport in wheelchairs.

T. M. George, 45, an auto parts store manager, was wounded in the back when he tried to shield his family from gunfire. The shooting began when the hijackers fired in panic as the lights went out in the Boeing 747 on a runway in Karachi, Pakistan, on Friday.

Route to Escape

The Georges’ two daughters, 8-year-old Priti, and 3-month-old Priya Joyce, apparently were unhurt, but the baby fell from her mother’s arms as the family scrambled out on a wing to escape and the parents said they planned to have her examined by a physician here.

The Indian-born couple had taken their children on a vacation to Bombay and were returning home when the aircraft was commandeered.

“I thought we were going to die,” George said. “I lay down on my family, my small child and other baby . . . I wanted to save my family.”

As the shooting began to die down, said George, a flight attendant called out that an emergency exit was open. The couple grabbed their daughters and ran to the exit, only to find themselves on a wing, 18 feet above the ground, without an escape chute. They turned and ran back through the plane--and some gunfire--to the other wing, where they were able to slide to safety.

One of the four hijackers, Mrs. George recalled, “said Americans killed his wife and whole family. It was his birthday and he was taking revenge. We were even scared to look at him.”

A total of 112 survivors of Flight 73 had arrived in the United States late Sunday, landing at New York’s Kennedy International Airport, where they were met by relatives, friends, reporters and photographers. At least 29 other passengers, including 24 American citizens, were being treated at U.S. military hospitals in West Germany.

Arrivals in L.A.

Pan Am officials said 16 survivors of the hijacking were booked on the plane that arrived in Los Angeles from New York on Monday afternoon.

Among them was Kankuben Gala, 67, of Tustin, who also was in a wheelchair. She had been shot in the lower left leg as she rushed to an emergency exit and her back and neck were injured when she jumped down to the tarmac.

When Gala was wheeled off the plane in Los Angeles, clutching her X-rays, her blue polyester slacks and a purple sweater showed the dirt and oil marks of her leap. Other terrified passengers had jumped down on top of her at Karachi, she explained.

Gala’s son, Bharat, 32, an Orange County motel owner, met her Monday and interpreted for her. He said she related, “It was all confusion and panic. Nobody knew what to do. We just started jumping. There was gunfire. It was dark and I was very scared.”

Concern for Relatives

Also meeting the plane was Harshad Shah, 40, a Los Angeles bank employee, who had waited through the days of fear and uncertainty to learn what had happened to his wife, Raksha; his 65-year-old mother, Jasumati; his son, Pratik, 3, and his daughter, Jignisha, 13.

Shah’s family members, whom he had sent to Bombay to visit friends and relatives, were apparently uninjured. As they left the plane, Pratik pointed at his father and cried, “Daddy, Daddy!”

Shah wept.

Earlier Monday, Arun Athavale of Mission Viejo, a computer engineer, arrived here on an American Airlines plane and was met by his wife, Prati, and son, Agay, 4.

Saw No Commandos

Asked about the role of Pakistani commandos in ending the hijack episode, he said grimly, “None of the people saw any commandos.”

When the lights went out in the plane, he said, the terrorists “killed indiscriminately, firing their machine guns from less than a yard away.”

He said of a family of four sitting across the aisle from him:

“Two of them were killed and the others were wounded.”

Some Southlanders will not be coming home. The only two American citizens confirmed killed were Orange County residents.

One was naturalized citizen Rajesh Kumar, 29, of Huntington Beach. He was shot by the hijackers when, according to some other passengers, he objected to their rough treatment of a flight attendant.

Fullerton Resident

The other was identified by the State Department on Monday as Surendra Manubhal Patel, 50, of Fullerton, a computer programmer who was returning home from a vacation with his two daughters.

He was not related to Kuverben Patel, 80, Kumar’s grandmother, who was also among the passengers killed. The elderly woman, a resident of a village outside Bombay, had been on her way to Southern California with Kumar and Kumar’s aunt, Gangaben Patel. The latter apparently was not hurt.

Another Southern Californian who died was Kala Singh, a resident alien who lived in La Jolla. Her husband, Sadanand Singh, said she was killed when she threw herself in front of her son and daughter.

After complaints by families in the United States that they had been unable to get accurate information about their kin on the jetliner, a spokeswoman for a State Department task force said American consular officials were empowered only to deal with U.S. citizens.

“If we run across information about someone else,” said the spokeswoman, who did not want to be identified, “we’re not averse to passing it on. But U.S. consulate officers go out to hospitals and airports to help U.S. citizens in distress. Our responsibility is to assist U.S. citizens.”

The spokeswoman said anyone calling the State Department for information about a permanent resident would have been advised to call the embassy representing the passenger’s nationality.