Ben Goldsmith reveals sister Jemima Khan led passengers in prayer after their flight plummeted 30,000 feet after mentally unstable passenger stormed the cockpit

Passengers and crew onboard a British Airways jumbo jet, which plummeted 30,000 feet after being hijacked by a mentally ill passenger, have spoken of their terror and hearing ‘grown men crying’.

With 400 passengers on board, BA flight 2069,  left Gatwick heading to Nairobi on December 29, 2000.

Six hours later, it was cruising 35,000 ft above Sudan when a mentally unstable passenger, – a  Kenyan man Paul Mukonyi –  stormed the cockpit and took over the controls.

Financier and environmentalist Ben Goldsmith, was on the flight with his mother Lady Annabel Goldsmith, his sister Jemima Khan, and her two sons, aged one and four at the time. 

Speaking in a new Channel 5 documentary, Terror at 30,000 feet, which airs tonight, Ben revealed how her told his mother ‘we’re going to die,’ before his sister Jemima told the passengers to stop crying and led a recital of the Lord’s Prayer. 

Ben recalled the ‘noise of grown men screaming’ as they plummeted to the ground and his sister asking the plane to pray with her.

‘My sister was holding the older of her two boys and she shouted “everyone stop screaming, I have a child with me, please let’s pray.” 

‘So we immediately, led by her, said the Lord’s Prayer. I broke off from praying and I said to my mother, “we are going to die now mum”. ‘

British pop singer Bryan Ferry (left) watched as British Airways flight crew prepared to carry Kenyan hijacker, Paul Kefa Mukonyi, 27, off their Kenya-bound flight

Passengers screamed in terror as the Boeing made a steep incline, leaving the plane almost vertical.

Oxygen masks dropped from their hatches as bags flew through the cabins and passengers who were not strapped in bumped their heads on the backs of seats. 

Ben recalled: ‘The noise of grown men screaming, I had never heard that noise before. 

‘The noise of 700 people screaming their heads off in a small cylinder tube is really like nothing I have ever experienced.’

As the Captain Bill Hagan and co-pilot Phil Watson struggled with the hijacker for control of the plane it was sent into a spin and then a downward spiral. 

‘The silence in that fall was deafening because everyone was trying to catch breath and trying to hold on. Just the noise of the whistling wind as the plane plunged’, Ben added. 

Cabin Crew member Kim Parker, who was the most badly injured person on the flight, also remembered the horror of that day. 

She said: ‘The aircraft just flipped up, and I was on the ceiling and as I came down, it was the impact of hitting the floor that broke my legs straight away. I did actually hear them snap. 

‘All I could see was the ground, and I thought this is how people must feel in plane crashes.

Hijacker of a Kenya-bound British Airways jumbo jet Paul Kefa Mukonyi, 27, sits with his hands tied in the plane

Cabin Crew member Kim Parker, who was the most badly injured person on the flight, also remembered the horror of that day

‘When it rolled over on it’s side, I remember leaving the floor, but I don’t remember landing because I had obviously passed out at this time, and that’s obviously when I fractured the vertebra on my back. 

‘I came to and I couldn’t get off the floor, but I couldn’t work out why I couldn’t get off the floor, but it was to do with the G-force.’  

Captain Hagan, who had left his co-pilot Phil in the cockpit alone while he went for a nap in his cabin, first noticed something was wrong when the plane started serve climbing which woke him out of his sleep. 

He said: ‘As I made my way back into the cockpit, I noticed a terrorist, he was clutching the controls and we were still in a very steep climb. I had to get him off the controls, that was the only thing that was on my mind. 

 ‘I hit him with my first two or three times in his temple, that achieved nothing, he was wearing a policeman’s jacket and I pulled that, but it just came away. 

‘I then reached into his armpits and pulled him off the control pad, but what I didn’t realise was he was still clutching the controls, so I left go for a minute and when I did we went into a dive.’

Hero Captain Bill Hagan managed to wrestle to the floor a mentally ill passenger who had taken control of the joystick

As the captain and co-pilot Phil Watson struggled with the hijacker for control of the plane it was sent into a spin and then a downward spiral

The captain, who’s wife and children were also on the flight, said he felt ‘shame’ that he couldn’t stop the terrorist and he thought they were all going to die. 

He said: ‘I was frustrated, I couldn’t do it and it was up to me. Then the inspiration came to me, I have my family onboard, this guy was trying to kill my wife and children, I got angry and pushed my finger into his eye as hard and as high as I could.’

In the scuffle the intruder bit one of the pilot’s fingers but Captain Hagan succeeded in dragging him out of the cockpit and into the club class cabin. 

Three passengers, including Jon Keens, rushed to help, and they bundled the man to the ground. 

Cabin Crew Collette Manning explained that they had to tie him up on one of the passengers seats to restrain him. 

Watson, the co-pilot, who had been sitting at the controls throughout, pulled the plane out of its dive and ended the two-minute crisis, which took place just before 5am.

Ben said: ‘A voice came over the tannoy, and it was the captain, and he said “we are ok, we have had a terrible fright, some mad guy has just tried to crash the plane and kill us all, but we are ok we are safe.”

Goldsmith said he sparked up a cigarette along with other passengers, even though smoking was banned on flights, and cabin crew started handing out measures of alcohol.     

Ben was travelling to Kenya with his mother, who was the widow of businessman Sir James, his sister Jemima and her children, Kasim, aged 18 months, and Sulaiman, four, at the time, for a two-week holiday.

Also on board were the singer Bryan Ferry and his wife Lucy Helmore, en route to Zanzibar for a family break.

The intruder was arrested when the flight arrived in Nairobi. Police described the 27-year-old man, a Kenyan, as a suspected mental patient.

Terror at 30,000 Feet. Friday at 9pm on Channel 5