The story of courageous Neerja Bhanot, who sacrificed her life while protecting the lives of 359 passengers on Pan Am Flight 73 in 1986 when it was hijacked by a terrorist organization.
22-year-old Neerja Bhanot (Sonam Kapoor) arrives late for a house party. Later that evening her mother Rama (Shabana Azmi) expresses concern once about Neerja's job as a flight attendant and suggests Neerja to return to her old job of modeling. She lives with her father Harish (Yogendra Tiku), Rama and brother Aneesh (Arjun Aneja). Neerja is the life of any party and has a positive and joyous outlook towards life.
Neerja likes her job and is driven to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport by her boyfriend Jaideep (Shekhar Ravjiani) on the early morning of September 5, 1986. Neerja's colleagues love Jaideep, he adores her and gives her an advance birthday present in the form of a letter which he asks her to read on the plane.
Neerja reflects on her brief and unhappy arranged marriage. Her former husband Naresh (Kavi Shastri) was a professional in Doha, Qatar. He constantly harangued and abused Neerja over dowry. (It is revealed that Neerja's family had made it clear there would be no dowry, but the husband had expected otherwise). He also constantly abused Neerja as she could not cook or clean. Naresh was the reason that Neerja gave up her modeling.She eventually returned home to honor a modeling contract. He sent back a humiliating letter attacking her parents about dowry, her lack of domestic skills and suggesting that she had better bring money back or not come back at all. She broke off with him and landed a highly competitive job with Pan Am Airways.
Neerja boards Pan Am 73, from Mumbai to New York with stops in Karachi and Frankfurt. It is revealed that a terrorist group has planned to hijack the plane in Karachi. The group had monitored the plane coming into Karachi on 4th September and knew that it would again come to Karachi on 5th September on its return leg to New York. They were targeting an American airline since they wanted American hostages to negotiate their demands. They arrange for guns and ammunition including 4 AK-47s, 8 grenades, 1 explosive belt and bullets.
The plane takes off from Mumbai's Sahar International Airport and lands in Karachi where the four terrorists Mansoor (Ali Baldiwala), Fahad (Vikrant Singta), Zayd (Abrar Zahoor) and Khalil (Jim Sarbh) belonging to Abu Nidal's organization (a Libyan-sponsored Palestinian terrorist group) board the plane disguised as security officers escorting a Libyan diplomat.Before the terrorists came, Imran Ali (radio engineer) had boarded the plane for routine checks and was not able to get off as the terrorists controlled all exists.
The hijackers reveal themselves and hijack the plane. Neerja quickly alerts the cockpit, and the three American pilots escape through the overhead hatch in the cockpit and run to the terminal despite firing by the terrorists. The American pilots had just enough time to escape, as the hijackers did not realize that the cockpit of a Boeing 747 is on the upper level.
Khalil wants to kill all the passengers as without pilots the plane cannot be taken anywhere. Zayd tells Khalil that they need to keep the passengers alive as this is the only way to get the pilots. The plane has over 300 passengers.
When an Indian American accompanied by his handicapped old mother inadvertently reveals himself to be an American one of the terrorists grabs him and shoots him dead and throws him down the aircraft before the Pakistani negotiators. The terrorists try to locate a radio engineer among the passengers by having Neerja make an announcement over the intercom.
Emran Ali (Shashi Bhushan), a Pakistani radio operator gets ready to stand up, but Neerja signals him to sit down. Later the terrorists ask the flight attendants to collect the passports so as to locate the Americans and hold them hostage. Neerja and her colleagues collect the passports but skillfully avoid any American passports by kicking them under the seats or throw them down the trash chutes. The terrorists, dejected over not finding any American passports, locate a British citizen and use him for negotiations.
The Pakistan negotiators inadvertently reveal the name of the radio engineer Emran Ali, who is located and roughly brought into the cockpit to start the radio and begin the negotiations. Their main demand is sending the pilots back to the aircraft to fly it to Cyprus and to demand for the release of their imprisoned colleagues languishing in jail. The Pakistani authorities try to stall for time. The terrorist leader Zayd chastises the other, younger terrorist Khalil who has begun roughing up the passengers and molesting the attendants.
Angered by his public embarrassment Khalil storms into the cockpit and shoots the radio engineer and in full defiance of his leader, screams wild threats over the radio. The terrorists are confused; Zayd only wants to complete the mission, but Khalil is now mad with rage and out of control. Pakistani air control is still negotiating but they are slowly losing control and time, and the terrorists are getting agitated by the minute.
Meanwhile, Neerja, whose birthday would be in 2 days, opens an envelope given to her by Jaideep. The envelope has a letter from him, confessing his love to her, and a cookie. Neerja reads the note and eats the cookie which symbolizes her acceptance of his love, something which Jaideep will never learn.
Around 17 hours later the plane loses auxiliary power, and the lights go out inside. Despite Neerja and the other attendants trying to explain this as a normal airplane reaction, the terrorists believe the power was cut deliberately by the Pakistani armed forces who will soon storm into the plane. In a panic mode, they now begin shooting down passengers indiscriminately. At great peril to her own life, Neerja opens the rear door and deploys the chute and begins directing passengers down the chute. Neerja chooses to let the passengers escape first.
Neerja is shot three times by a terrorist as she tries to shield three young children from the gunfire. The children escape the plane, and Neerja then drags herself out of the doorway and down the emergency slide before dying. The Special Service Group storms the plan, wounding and incapacitating all the terrorists.The film ends with a tributary message to Neerja who was eventually honored posthumously with the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime military decoration awarded for valor, courageous action or self-sacrifice away from the battlefield.
