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Pilot Stabs Captain Flying to Israel 10/01 06:36
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) -- A copilot stabbed a captain in an apparent attempt
to crash a jetliner as it was flying 174 people to Israel on Wednesday. But
passengers burst into the cockpit and wrestled with the attacker even as the
plane descended sharply, witnesses and Israel's government said.
The plane made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The shaken passengers
from the FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv landed Wednesday evening in
Israel on another flight, as onlookers cheered. Israel's emergency services
said they treated three passengers with minor injuries.
It was not clear what motivated the attack, which led Israel to scramble
warplanes amid concerns about a possible hijacking. In a CNN interview aired on
Wednesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacker
was an Omani national and was being interrogated in Saudi Arabia, where he was
arrested.
Aviation experts were surprised the plane did not crash after a descent so
extreme that most of the rudder was ripped off the tail.
"We're going to die," passenger Naama Bershadski recalled thinking as she
closed her eyes and prayed.
A video shared by Netanyahu's office showed passenger Yaniv Hayoun, who
grappled with the attacker, wearing a bloodied shirt and hugging the prime
minister, who told Hayoun: "I look at you and I see a lion. I see a great hero."
President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he and
Netanyahu discussed the incident "at length" by telephone and that it seemed as
though the copilot "was perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack job. And, he
stabbed the pilot."
Responders said they knew they had seconds to act
Hayoun, who Netanyahu identified as a plumber, said he and others pushed
their way into the cockpit, where he saw the alleged attacker seemingly trying
to destroy the controls.
"The door apparently wasn't locked, and we managed to open it," Hayoun told
journalists at the airport. "What made it difficult for us was the (other)
pilot himself. He had been stabbed and was on the other side of the door."
Hayoun told Netanyahu that as people wrestled with the attacker, he grabbed
the controls and pulled them the way he had seen on television shows. Then
other crew members took over. FlyDubai said the aircraft was secured by on-duty
crew "who diverted and landed the aircraft safely."
Another responder, dentist Shota Musayev, told journalists they realized
they had just seconds to take control of the plane before a "critical event."
They also feared another attacker might be on the plane, so "we spread a few
more people inside the plane so that if something happened, we would be able to
simply take control."
Musayev then attended to the wounded pilot: "He was just praying the whole
time and was in contact with me, and I was afraid we would really lose him."
Video footage on social media reviewed by The Associated Press showed two
men on the plane's floor, bloodied and wounded.
Netanyahu identified the captain as Smit Machchhar, an Indian citizen, and
noted his "extraordinary bravery." The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia said
Machchhar was hospitalized in stable condition.
"Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted,
opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the
attacker -- preventing a catastrophic midair disaster," Netanyahu said on X.
"He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other
nationals."
Israel's foreign ministry said the people on board were from Israel, India
and the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. State Department said four passengers
had American citizenship.
FlyDubai said its flights to and from Israel would be suspended while an
investigation takes place. Netanyahu said that he spoke with the UAE's
president, who agreed that Israel would join the interrogation of the suspect.
The incident came at a busy travel time as the Jewish High Holy Days with
school and work breaks wrap up. In addition, national elections will be held on
Oct. 27 and many Israelis plan to fly back to vote, since Israel doesn't permit
absentee voting from abroad.
Netanyahu had warned in recent days of unspecified, heightened security
threats. The country is a week away from the anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct.
7, 2023, attack on Israel, which has triggered a series of wars.
Aviation experts marvel that the plane didn't crash
In the chaos about two and a half hours after leaving Dubai, the flight
descended from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet (around 10,000 meters to 5,100
meters) in about a minute, before making an erratic circle close to the
Jordanian border and landing in Tabuk about an hour later, according to
Flightradar24, which identified the aircraft as a Boeing 737 Max 8.
According to a statement by Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International
Airport in Tabuk, the plane landed there at 9:45 a.m., an hour after making a
distress call.
"Suddenly the aircraft started to fall down, like, a massive turbulence,
like a massive G force, for 20 or 30 seconds," passenger Almog Italie said.
Former United Airlines pilot and aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo said he
was surprised that the plane was able to land safely after most of the rudder
was ripped off the tail during the extreme descent.
"That was a serious descent and strong aerodynamic forces on that rudder for
that to happen. I'm just amazed the aircraft didn't come apart," Arroyo said.
Another aviation safety expert, Jeff Guzzetti, said that given the rate of
descent, it may not have been possible for the plane to level out if it had
fallen below 10,000 feet.
"It is remarkable they were able to pull out of that dive. What saved them
is there was enough altitude left for them to recover," said Guzzetti, who used
to investigate crashes for the National Transportation Safety Board and the
Federal Aviation Administration in the U.S.
A panicked mayday call as the flight sought place to land
A person who heard the flight's communications with air traffic control
described the plane being turned away by Saudi Arabia and Jordan before
eventually landing in Tabuk, while passengers screamed in the background.
The person said the pilot's voice was trembling as he called "mayday" and
said a hijacking was taking place and ambulances would be needed. But Saudi
Arabia initially denied clearance to land and directed him to Jordan. The plane
was told to wait for clearance from the Jordanian military and then turned away.
The pilot then returned to Saudi Arabia and said he had to land in Tabuk.
The air control operators gave no reason for the refusals. The person who heard
the communications spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to speak to the media.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he spoke with his counterpart in
the UAE and they agreed to work together "against extremist elements seeking to
harm security and undermine stability in the region." The general Civil
Aviation Authority of the UAE said it was investigating a security incident.
An official confirmed that Israel had scrambled warplanes, fearing a
hijacking. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident
was under investigation.
Israelis have made emergency landings in Saudi Arabia before
Israelis were targeted in a string of hijackings and airplane attacks by
Palestinian militants in the 1960s and 1970s. Israel has not experienced a
hijacking in decades but maintains some of the strictest airport security in
the world, including on Israel-bound flights.
The emergency landing in Saudi Arabia was not the first for a plane carrying
Israelis home. The kingdom does not have formal diplomatic ties with Israel,
but ended its longstanding ban on Israeli flights overflying its territory in
2022.
Since then, Saudi Arabia has coordinated emergency landings for Israeli
passengers, including in 2023 when a plane experienced an electrical
malfunction.
The UAE has become a popular vacation destination for Israeli tourists since
the countries normalized ties in 2020. FlyDubai is the lower-cost sister
carrier of Emirates airlines.
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