IC 814: Captain Devi Sharan Was Prepared to Crash the Plane in Lahore, But Halted After Spotting People on the Ground
In an interview with CNN, Captain Sharan described how the hijackers initially ordered him to fly the plane to Pakistan. When they were denied permission to land there, he diverted the flight to Amritsar. The situation grew increasingly dire when the hijackers, determined not to die in India, forced Sharan to take off from Amritsar despite the plane being dangerously low on fuel.
Upon reaching Lahore, the situation became even more desperate. The runway lights at Lahore airport were turned off, and the airport was closed. With the fuel almost exhausted, Sharan prepared for the worst—a crash landing. “When we arrived in Lahore, everything was shut down,” Sharan recounted. “The airport runway was closed, and with no fuel left to return to Amritsar, crashing the plane seemed like the only option.”
However, as he prepared to make a crash landing, Sharan noticed people on the ground, which caused him to hesitate. In a dramatic turn of events, the Pakistani airport authorities, realizing the imminent danger, quickly granted the flight permission to land. “Just in time, they cleared the runway for us. I had about one and a half minutes of fuel left, and thankfully, I was able to land safely,” Sharan said.
The ordeal was far from over, though. After refueling in Lahore, the hijackers ordered the plane to fly to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where they released 26 passengers and the body of one who had been killed during the hijacking.
The standoff continued for nearly a week, with tense negotiations between the hijackers and the Indian government. The crisis ultimately ended when the Indian government agreed to release three imprisoned terrorists—Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Masood Azhar, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar—in exchange for the safe return of the remaining passengers and crew of IC 814.
Captain Devi Sharan later chronicled his harrowing experience in the book Flight Into Fear, which served as the inspiration for Anubhav Sinha’s Netflix series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, featuring Vijay Varma in the role of Captain Devi Sharan.