A flydubai pilot who was stabbed by his copilot midair opened the cockpit door so passengers and crew could rush in and stop the attacker from crashing the plane, Israeli officials say.
The flight was traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday with 174 people on board when one pilot attacked the other as the plane approached Israel. Israeli officials identified the wounded flydubai pilot as Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian national. Israel’s Foreign Ministry called him a hero and said he fought back after he was stabbed in the cockpit.
According to Israeli officials, Machchhar got the locked cockpit door open despite his wounds. Passengers and crew then forced their way inside, took control of the copilot, and secured the cockpit before the plane could go down. One passenger who helped break in told reporters the hardest part was that the bleeding captain was on the other side of the door.
Passengers described the moment the flight lost control. Miryam Shira Ohayon told reporters the plane was “pretty much out of control” over Jordan when the attack happened. Speaking by speakerphone as her mother held the phone up at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, she said the aircraft was on its way to crashing until people on board took down the copilot.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement that one pilot stabbed the other and that all indications show he tried to crash the plane with everyone on board. Israel scrambled fighter jets after the plane’s sudden drop in altitude raised fears of a hijacking.
The Boeing 737 diverted to Tabuk, a city in northwest Saudi Arabia with a civilian airport next to a Saudi military base. flydubai described what happened as an “incident” and said the plane landed safely with all passengers accounted for. No passengers were hurt. Saudi authorities said both pilots were hospitalized, and the copilot was detained in Saudi Arabia.
Israeli officials say their preliminary investigation points to an attempted terrorist attack by the flydubai pilot who carried out the stabbing, whom they describe as Omani. He has not been publicly named, and neither flydubai nor Saudi authorities have confirmed a motive.
Trump said he spoke with Netanyahu at length and suggested the copilot was “perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack job.”
Most of the passengers on the flight were Israelis. The Associated Press described the attack as the latest case of a crew member hijacking the plane they were hired to fly.
