In The Hijacking of Flight 601, Edilma Pérez is a flight attendant who, in her desperation, agrees to work on a hijacked flight. Mónica Lopera plays Edie.
Edilma Pérez, better known as Edie, works as a flight attendant for Aerobolivar. Edie is a single mother of three whose partner abandoned her and her children.
Aerobolivar does not hire flight attendants who have children, so Edie keeps the fact that she is a mother a secret.
Balancing motherhood with her job is challenging for Edie. One day, when she gets late due to her children and misses her flight, she gets fired.
A courageous decision
Edie is not one to give up easily. She goes to the company’s director to demand her job back, threatening to expose the fact that the woman he loves, Manchola, is involved in smuggling with the airline.
She manages to get her job back, only to be fired again when the news comes that the flight she missed has been hijacked.
Due to Edie missing the flight, there is only a new flight attendant on board who is unable to manage the situation.
To get her job back, Edie offers to replace her. In exchange for risking her life, she asks for a raise and a contract, both of which she receives.
Edie then boards the flight, not without her best friend Bárbara. She intends to survive for the sake of her children, who have no one else but her.
Edie, being an experienced flight attendant, earns Captain Wilches’s trust to use her wits to help the passengers and him.
When Edie discovers that the hijackers are refusing to release any passengers, without which the government will not negotiate with them, she comes up with a plan.
She convinces a woman to pretend to be pregnant to get the hijackers to release her. Initially, her plan worsens matters, but when the press arrives, it leads to the release of women and children.
Edie accompanies the woman to the ambulance. Although given the choice to leave with them, she returns to the flight for Bárbara’s sake.
Saving lives
Following the release, when the hijackers’ demands are not met, they kill a man, and Edie grapples with the guilt of being responsible for his death.
However, she pulls herself together and sets her next plan into motion with Bárbara. While Bárbara drugs the hijackers, Edie successfully opens a hidden door on the plane.
The captain initiates his plan to attack the hijackers, while Edie manages to help most of the passengers leave through the hidden door.
The hijacking brings Edie face to face with death several times, but despite that, she saves one of the hijacker’s lives when he gets shot.
Later, when the captain decides to fly the plane to Bogotá, where a bloodbath is expected, Edie pleads with him not to risk all their lives, but to no avail.
The captain’s decision leads to a hijacker threatening to blow up the plane, resulting in Edie threatening to shoot the captain and then stabbing him in the thigh.
Lequerica then takes control of the plane, and Edie manages to convince the hijacker not to blow up the plane by empathizing with him, successfully saving everyone’s lives.
Edie’s safe return after the hijacking
Apart from the captain, everyone returns home safely. To protect herself and her partners from being branded as co-conspirators of the hijackers, she lies to the authorities.
She leads everyone to believe that the captain sacrificed himself for everyone else’s safety and made a deal with the hijackers, which allowed them to escape.
As Edie’s story portrays the captain as a hero, he does not contradict her when he returns safely. Edie then reunites with her children.
Due to her brave and strategic actions during the flight, Edie is able to continue working as a flight attendant despite having children.
This experience also makes her realize that she needs to cherish every moment with her children to the fullest.
Also Read: The Hijacking of Flight 601 summary and ending explained