In the first episode of Hijack, we saw that Sam Nelson had offered the perpetrators to help them deal with the passengers in return for letting him go back home. Obviously, the hijackers were not convinced in the first go, but Sam’s actions were quite compelling. Sam clearly had a plan in mind, and he was trying hard to win the trust of the hijackers and make them believe that he was on their side. Sam knew that the onus of saving the lives of those hundreds of innocent passengers lay on him, and no one else had the skills that he possessed. So, let’s find out what Sam Nelson was up to and if he was able to trick the hijackers into believing him or not.
Spoilers Alert
What Did Abdullah Find Out About Neela Kumar?
In Hijack Episode 1, Captain Robin Allen contacted the Dubai control room and told them that he believed that there was some security issue on the flight. Then later, the hijackers took charge of the cockpit and forced Robin Allen to lie to the control room. Since that time, Abdullah, one of the employees at the Dubai air traffic control center, had become suspicious, and he had a feeling that something wasn’t right on the flight. He had even asked Robin Allen why he had used the word “definite” if he was not sure that there was an actual problem in the airplane. Robin told him that it was just a misunderstanding, and some drunk people rambled about a threat, which they took way too seriously. But Abdullah was not satisfied, and just as his shift was about to get over, he heard his superior talking to his British counterpart. Abdullah started entertaining the possibility that the pilot might have been coerced to say that everything was fine on the flight. He went to the security room and asked the person in charge to show him the CCTV camera footage. He saw that Neela Kumar, who was at the baggage security check, suddenly took her belongings and left. Abdullah asked the security officer in charge to check what time her shift got over because he felt that something was wrong with her.
A couple of men belonging to the same gang who had hijacked the plane were at Neela’s house, and they had threatened her to do as they said if she wanted to see her husband alive. She was told that a few people would arrive who would have weapons in their hand luggage, and she would have to pass them without creating a fuss. Neela did as she was told, but when she reached home, the hijackers killed her and her husband. Abdullah was on his way back when he was told that Neela had left early for home, and she had given the reason that she was not feeling well. Abdullah went to her house to check on her, and that was probably the biggest mistake he committed. The two men present at Neela’s house told Abdullah that they were house cleaners. Abdullah went upstairs, and he found the dead bodies of Neela and her husband. Before he could call for help, the killers came and shot him too. Till this moment in Hijack Episode 2, from the United Kingdom to Dubai, everybody had nullified the possibility of some issue arising on the flight. Everybody conveniently considered it a false alarm, and they were not keen on following the lead as they probably wanted to save themselves from the hassle. Nobody thought why Robin Allen had suddenly changed his statement and given some lame excuse when he had consciously raised the alarm and then called a second time to confirm it.
Why Was Sam Nelson Helping The Hijackers?
Sam’s wife, Marsha, asked her boyfriend, Daniel, to use his contacts in the counterterrorism wing and get some information about the flight from Dubai to the United Kingdom. Daniel contacted his ex-partner, who told him that it was just a false alarm, and everything was fine on the flight.
Meanwhile, two passengers decided to take on the hijackers by themselves, even after Sam had told them in the first episode that it was a foolish decision and they wouldn’t be able to achieve anything through that. Sam wanted to go about things in a tactical manner, as he realized that if the hijackers had enough contacts to get weapons on the plane, then they were not rookies who could be taken out so easily. Sam wanted to win the trust of the hijackers so that he could mislead them because he knew that it was the only way through which he could save the lives of all the individuals on board. Obviously, the hijackers didn’t believe him at first, but during the fight with those two passengers, Sam picked up a gun and returned it to them, showing his allegiance and proving that he didn’t mean any harm. The leader of the hijackers was a bit surprised by his gesture, and he started believing that maybe Sam wasn’t bluffing and that he actually wanted to help their cause so that he could get back home to his family. Sam convinced the leader that the pilot needed to be taken out of the cockpit as he could mislead them as none of them knew anything about flying a plane.
The hijackers believed Sam and Robin Allen were taken out of the cockpit and made to sit in the same compartment as Sam. We got to know about Sam’s real intentions when he logged into the video game attached to every seat. He sent a request to Robin Allen to join, as the opponents could talk via messages in the game. He asked Robin if anybody on the ground knew about their situation, and Robin told him that though it wasn’t known right now that they were hijacked, the Iraqi air traffic control center would soon come to know about it. Robin said that as soon as they entered Iraqi airspace, the controller would ask for identification, and if they failed to reply to him, then the military would be informed, and action would be taken. Sam saw this as an opportunity to completely win over the hijackers, and so, as soon as the Iraqi traffic control established contact, he told the hijackers to let the captain talk to them as otherwise, they would suspect some foul play.
Robin Allen also played along and made it look like he wanted the Iraqis to know about their situation. When he went inside the cockpit to talk to the controller, he changed the path of the flight, hoping that somebody would notice the deviation. Sam had told him to do so, as he knew that the hijackers, considering how clueless they were about everything, would never get to know that it was them who had left a trail for the traffic control to follow. Sam and Robin’s effort paid off when Alice Sinclair, who worked at the British air traffic control, grew suspicious about the entire false alarm thing that had happened before her shift had begun. She called her superiors and asked if they had double-checked the entire thing because she felt that something was not right in the airplane.
British air traffic control came into contact with their Iraqi counterpart, who told them how the pilot hadn’t responded for the longest time and then came and said that he was in the restroom. Sinclair asked them to display their screens so that they could see the path taken by the flight. The controllers, because of Alice’s suspicions, were able to make a big revelation at the end of Hijack Episode 2. They found out that the flight had altered its course by exactly three degrees, and they realized that it was done intentionally to inform them that they had been hijacked. Sam was treading on thin ice, and he knew that one wrong step could cost him his life. He had made a considerable amount of progress, and the hijackers trusted him, but he still knew that it was going to be a long battle. In Hijack Episode 3, we will get to know what the intention of the hijackers was and if they find out that Sam was tricking them and that he was not on their side.
