That sounds absolutely terrifying and makes me not want to travel anywhere ever again.

Welcome to the world. If someone wants to shoot you, they can just do that. If that someone is a government, they won't suffer any consequences. There have been flights deliberately diverted by the country they were traveling over because they didn't like one of the people onboard, and that person was arrested by that country upon landing. I think the USA does this most frequently but it's also happened in CIS countries and Asian countries.