The Last Flight: Neerja Bhanot's 17 Hours of Bravery That Saved 340 Lives On September 5, 1986, four armed hijackers stormed Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi and turned a Boeing 747 into a sealed room of fear. At its center stood a 22-year-old senior flight purser-Neerja Bhanot-who alerted the cockpit, hid the passports the gunmen demanded, steadied a panicked cabin, opened an escape door under fire, and in her final act shielded children with her own body. More than 340 people survived. The Last Flight is a scene-driven, evidence-led account of that night and its long tail-reconstructed from public records, survivor testimony, and aviation practice. With clarity and compassion, Linda Davidson shows how one person's moral courage under fire reshaped airline training and left a legacy that still protects lives. Inside you'll find: A minute-by-minute reconstruction of the Flight 73 hijacking How Neerja's leadership embodied crew resource management (CRM) Passenger and crew perspectives-fear, resilience, and small acts of grace The investigations, trials, and aviation-security reforms that followed The continuing work and impact of the Neerja Bhanot Pan Am Trust For readers of Unbroken, Sully, and I Am Malala-this is not a story of terror, but of courage that changed the fate of hundreds. Content note: Includes non-graphic descriptions of violence and trauma.