Passengers overcame pilot trying to crash plane: Israel
|
Passengers on a Flydubai flight have reached Israel safely after customers and crew foiled a co-pilot’s attempt to crash the aircraft, Israeli officials say, in a struggle that began when he stabbed the pilot and sent the jet plunging.
Passengers and crew entered the cockpit, overpowered the co-pilot and enabled a second pair of Flydubai pilots who were aboard the flight to land the jet safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, Israeli officials said.
More than 10 hours later, the passengers arrived at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport aboard a Flydubai replacement aircraft, with several describing the episode as a miracle and recounting a frantic struggle to prevent a catastrophe.
Israeli officials said the attacker’s motive aboard flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv remained under investigation.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, signed the Abraham Accords normalising relations in 2020.
“I just can say that it was a miracle. It was awful, crazy, and we thank God that we survived it, we didn’t think we will make it but thank God we are in Israel. We are back home. And we are happy to see everyone here,” passenger Lital Shachaf said.
Israel’s ambulance service said a 51-year-old man was taken to an Israeli hospital to be treated for injuries to his upper body.
The man was in a “mild condition,” it said.
Describing the event as “a serious security incident,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saudi authorities would interrogate the co-pilot.
Flydubai said in a statement that the underlying reasons for the event remained unknown and warned against “premature speculation”.
An Israeli official identified the co-pilot as an Omani citizen.
Netanyahu said there were 174 people on board the flight from Dubai, most of them Israeli citizens.
A Netanyahu spokesperson told Reuters that the wounded Indian captain, identified by the Israeli leader’s office as Smit Machchhar, was covered with blood on the floor when he managed to click the release to open the cockpit door.
Passengers who entered found the co-pilot bashing at the plane’s control panel, the spokesperson said.
“This is something you do without thinking, just running to save your daughter’s life, your family’s life,” said Asaf Rajuan, one of the passengers who helped restrain the attacker.
He spoke with a forehead still bloodied from the struggle.
Netanyahu’s office released a video showing the prime minister at Ben Gurion Airport giving a hug to another passenger, Yaniv Hayun, who his office said “broke into” the cockpit and grappled with the attacker.
“I see you and I see a lion – a big hero,” Netanyahu told the man, who was still wearing the blood-stained shirt he had on during the flight.
After a passenger saw one pilot stab the other and called out for help, Hayun said, he and others pushed their way into the cockpit, where he saw the unharmed pilot apparently trying to destroy the controls, Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 reported.
“The door apparently wasn’t locked, and we managed to open it somehow,” Hayun told journalists.
“What made it difficult for us was the (other) pilot himself. He had been stabbed and was on the other side of the door.”
As people wrestled with the attacker, Hayun said he grabbed the controls and pulled them the way he had seen on television.
Then other crew members took over.
FlyDubai said the aircraft was secured by on-duty crew “who diverted and landed the aircraft safely”.
Another passenger in the scrum, Tzvika Manes, told Channel 12 it took many minutes to subdue the attacking pilot.
with AP
Reuters