30 April 2023 , 10:17
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A British hijacking victim who was held hostage by a group of armed terrorists aboard a Pan Am plane in 1986 has confronted the man who held him at gunpoint.
Mike Thexton was 27 years old when his flight returning from Karachi in Pakistan - where he'd spent the summer hiking through the Himalayas - was boarded by a terror cell.
For 16 hours, the jet stayed on the tarmac as Mike and another 400 victims were held by the rifle and grenade-wielding four men.
Zaid Hassan Abd Latif Safrani, the head of the terror gang, wanted to fly the aircraft into an Israeli military base.
The plot would've resulted in everyone on the flight being slaughtered.
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Bloodstained shoes lie unclaimed at the area departure of Karachi airport on September 7, 1986 (AFP via Getty Images)Thanks to the quick-thinking pilots, they put a halt to the devastating attack by escaping through a cockpit hatch before the group could get inside, meaning they had no one to fly the plane.
During the ordeal, 21 innocent civilians lost their lives.
Mike - who recalled pleading for his life - had always wondered why he was spared by the murderous cell - and has now had his question answered.
Injured victims are evacuated to a US military hospital in Germany (AFP via Getty Images)The then 27-year-old was in the Himalayas honouring the memory of his brother Peter, 30, after his death while climbing the 12th highest mountain in the world.
In a Sky documentary being aired tonight, Mike said it was his story, and dedication to his brother, which touched the apparently heartless terrorist's heart.
On Hijacked: Flight 73, he recalled begging his captor not to kill him, saying: "Please, please don't hurt me. My brother has died in the mountains, my parents have no one else".
Mike when he was 27 years old (Sky Uk)At the time, the gunman waved him away, as though to say "I haven't got time for that".
But, after a phone call to the terrorist last summer, he learned that he had actually taken what he had said on board.
Safarini, who will die in prison after being jailed for 160 years, told him: "You mentioned to me that your brother is killed.
Mike was in the Himalayas after his brother died three years earlier (Sky Uk)"I say, 'OK man, just sit aside'. It touched my heart, actually."
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"I was astonished that he told me that he put me back with the others at the end because of what I had said about my brother dying," he told MailOnline.
The terrorists called Mike first, holding him at gunpoint at the front of the plane while they killed 21 people and injuring more than 100.
Zaid Hassan Abd Latif Safrani (Sky Uk)The first killing happened when they failed to negotiate a deal to get a new pilot.
Miraculously, 63-year-old Mike survived with just a scratch to his elbow.
The gunmen and their accomplices were sentenced to death in Pakistan and later given life imprisonment.
The Pan Am flight 73 (Sky Uk)Safarini had then been released from prison in Pakistan, but two weeks after 9/11 he was captured by the FBI and taken to the US. There, he later pleaded guilty to 95 counts, including murder.
Mike and Sunshine both attended his 2003 Washington court case.
"He was the man that was going to shoot me. He looked pathetic, broken", Mike says.