Jaishankar recalls nerve-wracking hijacking of IC 421: 'I discovered my father was on the flight'

Jaishankar was part of a team that dealt with the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight 'IC 421'

External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Friday opened up about a personal experience from 1984 when a plane in which his father was travelling got hijacked. He was asked a question about the Netflix web series "IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack".

Interacting with the Indian diaspora in Germany, Jaishankar said that he has not yet seen the web series, which had courted a controversy since the showmakers did not explicitly use the real name of the hijackers.

Jaishankar then recalled that he was part of a team that dealt with the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight 'IC 421', in which his own father was travelling.

#WATCH | Geneva: On 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' Netflix web series, EAM Dr S Jaishankar says, "I haven't seen the film, so I don't want to comment. In 1984, there was a hijacking. I was a very young officer. I was part of the team which was dealing with it. After 3-4 hours of pic.twitter.com/tGMX4MP5nl

ANI (@ANI) September 13, 2024

“In 1984, there was a hijacking. I was a very young officer. I was part of the team which was dealing with it. After 3-4 hours of the hijacking, I rang up my mother to tell her that I can't come, there's a hijacking. And then I discovered my father was on the flight," he said.

The minister added that nobody was killed in the incident.

"It was interesting because, on the one hand, I was part of the team which was working on the hijacking. On the other hand, I was part of the family members who were pressing the government on the hijacking...,” he said.

Jaishankar’s father, Krishnaswamy Subramanyam, was onboard the hijacked flight IC 421 in August 1984. The incident is said to be the longest and most nerve-wracking ordeal in Indian aviation history.

On August 24, flight IC-421 was hijacked by a group of Sikh separatists who were allegedly upset with India after “Operation Blue Star”.

The operation, which was launched during the India Gandhi regime, was an Indian military offensive aimed at establishing control over the Harmandir Sahib Complex (Golden Temple) in Amritsar.

Subramanyam was among the 100 passengers aboard the hijacked flight which took off from Delhi's Palam Airport for Srinagar, via Chandigarh and Jammu.

However, when the flight touched down in Chandigarh, seven hijackers, affiliated to the outlawed All India Sikh Students Federation, all in their teens or early twenties, stormed into the cockpit of the flight. They demanded that the flight be flown to the United States. However, later the hijackers demanded that the flight be flown to Lahore after learning that the regional jet didn't have the range to fly to the western hemisphere, reported India Today magazine in 1984.

Before touching down in Lahore across the border, the Khalistani terrorists reportedly forced the pilot to circle the skies above the Golden Temple twice. The aircraft was not in Pakistani airspace.

The plane was already running low on fuel. After circling for 80 minutes over Lahore, the controllers cleared it to land. As the hijacked plane stood at Lahore, then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi requested then Pakistan President General Zia-ul-Haq not to allow the plane to leave Lahore. However, Pakistan did not yield to India’s request and the flight took off.

With a stopover at Karachi, the flight landed in Dubai. In Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities initially refused landing permission.

The hijackers insisted on being taken to the US while the Indian officials started negotiating with their UAE counterparts.

As the plane stood still on the tarmac in scathing Dubai heat, two ambulances were rushed as K Subrahmanyam, then director of the Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), a diabetic, urgently needed an insulin shot. Food and water was provided to the passengers. After 36 hours, all the passengers were welcomed to the transit lounge while the hijackers were hauled away in a van. Later, the hijackers were extradited to India by the UAE authorities.