‘Extremely Intelligent, Very Nice, Very Friendly’ : Hijack Victim Extolled as Gentleman

The work supervisor of a Fullerton man killed in the bloody hijacking of a Pan Am jetliner in Pakistan described the 50-year-old computer programmer Tuesday as someone against whom “no one would ever have a harsh word.”

“When we heard, the general mood was anger that something like this could happen to a gentle person like Surendra,” Atlantic Richfield Co.’s Bill Lacy said about the violent death of Surendra Manubhal Patel, who was senior operations specialist in planning and control for the petroleum company’s marketing and refining division.

“He was an extremely intelligent individual,” Lacy said. “Even more so, he was very nice, very friendly, one of those people who did his job and was well liked by everybody.”

Viola Patel of Fountain Valley said funeral services for her brother-in-law are being planned in London, where the victim’s parents live. Her husband, Shreenidhi Patel--the victim’s younger brother--has flown there to be with his family, she said.

Victim’s Body Located

Services also are still being planned for the hijacking’s first victim, Rajesh Kumar, 29, of Huntington Beach, and his grandmother, Kuverben Patel (no relation to Surendra Patel), a family spokesman said. The family was still awaiting word on when the bodies will be returned, the spokesman said.

Kumar, who had become a U.S. citizen only weeks earlier, was singled out and shot in the early hours of the siege aboard the jet Friday. His grandmother was among the 17 killed when hijackers opened fire on the passengers.

Kumar’s family earlier had heard that the grandmother had been cremated in Pakistan, but the Indian Consulate in San Francisco informed them Monday that her body had been located in Karachi.

For Surendra Patel, the flight was to have been the end of a vacation of about five weeks, spent visiting relatives in India, a journey he made every few years, Lacy said. He was traveling with his two daughters, while his wife remained behind with their youngest child, a boy, to visit longer.

Patel joined Arco on Feb. 11, 1974, a company spokesman said. Previously, he had worked at USC, where he also attended school, Lacy said.

Although Patel, a naturalized American citizen, made frequent trips to his homeland, he never expressed fears about traveling.

“He never talked about it that much at all,” Lacy said. “Surendra was not the type to show emotion and fear. Like everyone else, he probably never thought it would happen to him.”