The third episode of the Apple TV+ original, Hijack, left us at a point where we didn’t know if Hugo, Sam, and others were right in presuming that the bullets used by the hijackers were fake. The entire plan depended on that, and Sam was already on the move to take out the hijacker who was standing at the back. Meanwhile, Zahra Gahfoor was trying to gather as much information as she could on the ground, and she and her entire team were trying to prevent the catastrophe from happening. Let’s find out what happened in Hijack episode 4 and what Sam Nelson does to convey the information.
Spoilers Alert
Romanian Fighter Jets Surround The Hijacked Plane
The leader of the hijackers saw things getting out of hand, and he went back and shot a lady who had gotten up to look for a little girl named Izzy. Terror could be seen in the eyes of the passengers, as their worst fears were now coming true. The hijackers were not using fake bullets, and Sam Nelson realized that he and others in the business class had committed a blunder. Sam Nelson started thinking of other ways to communicate to the air traffic control center. Meanwhile, the plane had entered Romanian airspace, and they were asking for verifications according to protocol. Captain Robin Allen was sitting in business class, but the leader of the hijackers was in no mood to let him come into the cockpit and reply to them. The leader was under the misconception that since the plane was headed to the U.K., the different countries over whose airspace they were flying would let it pass even if they didn’t answer according to protocol. But the leader was wrong, as Robin Allen pointed out that for a foreign nation, the plane is like a missile, and if either the government or the pilot didn’t provide any information, then they would shoot it down.
Meanwhile, the British foreign minister was briefed about the ongoing situation by Zahra Gahfoor, and she made it very clear that unless and until they knew the nationality of the hijackers, they would not respond to any other nations. The foreign minister was constantly being contacted by his Romanian counterpart, but she was ignoring those calls as she herself had no idea what was happening. Alice Sinclair was in touch with the Romanian air traffic controllers, and she got to know that there were military jets flying side by side with the hijacked plane. Alice had been unable to convince her Romanian counterpart, and they had said that they were going ahead and shooting the planes down.
Meanwhile, on the plane, Robin Allen told the hijackers the same thing that if they did not respond, then the Romanian planes were going to shoot them down. When the hijackers realized that what he was saying might actually be true, they let him enter the cockpit so that he could follow the protocol. But Robin found out that the microphone was broken and there was no way to communicate with the Romanian air traffic control center.
How Did Sam Nelson Disclose The Identity Of The Hijackers?
Sam Nelson, in Hijack Episode 4, saw that one of the younger male hijackers was severely injured and was losing a lot of blood. Sam was an intelligent man and he had been in pressure situations before and so he knew that he needed to control his emotions and try to manipulate his opponent. He knew that he had to win the trust of the hijackers, so he led them into conflicts where they ended up giving out information without realizing the damage they had done. He started talking to the injured hijacker and told him that he needed to get a doctor so that the bleeding could stop. The air hostess was trying to wrap a bandage around his wound, but Sam told her that she needed another man to help since she was not able to do it properly. Sam knew that the injured hijacker would get desperate if the threat seemed real, and he actually started entertaining the possibility of death.
The hijacker was losing confidence with every passing second, and he was entering a space, psychologically speaking, where he just wanted somebody to save his life. He asked Sam to call Terry (one of his companions), but Sam lied that he couldn’t see anybody. He asked the injured hijacker to uncuff him so that he could help. The hijacker agreed, and Sam quickly came and sat down near him. He started manipulating him, and the hijacker reached a point where he was no longer in control. He told Sam that he wanted to call his mother one last time and say something to her. Sam knew that he would never get this kind of opportunity where a phone with an active internet connection was given to him. Sam called his wife Marsha and while she was on the phone he somehow managed to give her hijacker’s mother’s phone number.
As soon as Marsha got this information, she called Daniel and told her everything. Daniel knew that the number Sam had spoken on the phone was for a reason, and he immediately put it in the national database to find out who it belonged to. Daniel’s team found out that it belonged to the Atterton family, and the number led them to finding the details about other hijackers as well. Meanwhile, the Romanian foreign secretary, who was continuously in touch with his British counterpart, told her that in the next 60 seconds, they were going to shoot the plane down. The tensions rose, and everybody sat there holding their breaths. Just then, a list was sent directly to the British foreign secretary in which the names of the hijackers and their basic details were given. Lewis and Stuart Atterton, Jamie Konstantinou, Terry Ried, and Jaden Dahir were the names of the five hijackers who were on the plane. The British foreign minister confirmed to Romania that the plane was headed to the United Kingdom and that the hijackers were all British nationals. The attack was called off by the Romanian government, and though there was still a long way to go, this little victory allowed all those who were involved to take a sigh of relief as the lives of hundreds of innocents were saved.
Final words
Hijack episode 4’s ending left us on a cliffhanger as two important developments took place that caught our attention. A minister was given a folder that had the word “demands” written on it, and we believe that the hijackers have probably decided to let the government know what their motive behind hijacking the plane was. Also, we think that the demand wasn’t made by the hijackers on the plane but by the masterminds operating from the ground, though still we don’t know anything about their whereabouts. The second thing that happened was that Marsha received a call from a stranger who identified himself as a delivery man and asked for Sam Nelson’s address. Marsha didn’t know who they were or what package they wanted to deliver, but when she reached home at the end of the episode, she didn’t find her son in the house. It could be a possibility that those two men on the delivery truck might have received orders to kidnap the family members of Sam Nelson, just like they had done in Dubai. We would like to wait for the next episode to find out who these delivery men were, on whose orders they were acting, and if Sam Nelson’s exceptional negotiation skills are able to save the day.
