Man shares harrowing experience of thinking he was 'going to die' during an attempted plane hijacking

A man has shared the terrifying moment he thought he was 'going to die' during an 'attempted plane hijacking' 24 years ago.

Back in 2000, Ben Goldsmith was travelling from London Gatwick to Nairobi on British Airways flight 2069, along with his mother, sister and her young sons.

During the journey, a terrifying incident occurred when a passenger named Paul Kefa Mukonyi - who was suffering from mental health issues at the time - entered the cockpit where co-pilot Phil Watson was in charge of the aircraft.

Mukonyi tried to turn off the autopilot, which sent the plane into a huge nose dive, where it began descending towards the ground.

Speaking about the incident during an appearance on Channel 5's Terror at 30,000ft, Ben recalled: "All hell broke loose. Passengers started to scream, the noise of grown men screaming, I'd never heard that noise before.

"The noise of several hundred people screaming their heads off in a small cylinder tube is really like nothing you've ever experienced.

"Silence in that fall was deafening, the noise of the intense whistling wind as the plane seemingly just plunged."

Ben explained his sister desperately asked the other passengers to stop screaming as her children were scared.

"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'," he continued.

Ben Goldsmith was travelling from London Gatwick to Nairobi in 2000 when a hijacker took control of the plane's controls. (Channel 5)

"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'."

But Captain Bill Hagan - who had been taking a nap when the incident first occurred - took action, explaining that he also had his family onboard and wouldn't be going down without a fight.

"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," he explained.

"I had to get him off the controls, that was the only thing that was on my mind... I had my family on board and this guy was trying to kill my wife and children and I got very angry.

"I got inspiration at that point and I deliberately reached forward to gouge his eye. As I passed his mouth he bit my little finger and I pushed a finger into his eye as hard and as high, hoped if I pushed it even higher it would cause him to be incapacitated."

The plane managed to land safely (Getty Stock Photo)

Once Captain Bill had managed to restrain Mukonyi, other passengers helped tie him to a seat, before the flight landed in Nairobi and he was taken into custody.

Speaking after the incident, Dr Frank Njenga, a psychiatrist at Nairobi hospital, explained that Mukonyi had not meant to 'do any harm'.

"We are of the very firm belief from his story that at no point did our patient contemplate the hijacking or doing harm to anyone," he said.

"When everybody was settling down [in the aircraft] he felt completely crowded ... and he said people in front and behind were threatening him.

"He ran toward the front of the airplane... believing people were in hot pursuit."