The flydubai flight reached Israel safely after a courageous passenger and crew foiled an Omani co-pilot’s alleged attempt to crash the aircraft. Many, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, have praised the Indian pilot of Flight FZ1073, Smit Machchhar, for his heroic courage, as he prevented the plane from crashing after his co-pilot stabbed him and allegedly tried to take control of the aircraft during a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv.
Among them was Yaniv Hayun, who reportedly choked the suspected co-pilot and later pulled back on the aircraft’s controls. “My conclusion is that he managed to open it for us before he collapsed, with tremendous presence of mind. “When I went in, I saw the terrorist on the controls, between the two seats. “We heard screams from near the restroom. A girl’s mother came out screaming, and we understood something had happened to the plane. Rajuan was among those who helped overpower the co-pilot.
It lost control, went down at a 90-degree angle, and we understood there was no control over the aircraft and something had happened,” he said.
But Machchhar is just one of several people hailed as heroes for managing to wrest control of the plane from the attacker without caring about their own lives, according to Israeli officials, who also provided much of the detail on how events played out inside the steeply descending plane. Four Israeli citizens rushed to the cockpit and helped the crew in taking down the attacker before the two off-roster pilots took control of the plane and landed it at a small airport in the kingdom, according to Israel’s Ynet news. A video shared by the Israeli PM’s office showed Netanyahu at Tel Aviv airport meeting Hayun, a plumber by profession, after he landed in Israel with his shirt stained with blood but said he had not been injured. Hayun said the cockpit door was not locked when passengers reached it, and he believed the Indian pilot might have opened it beforehand. There were no pilots in the seats,” he said, explaining that he grabbed the co-pilot and dragged him out. He said the cockpit door was open, and the passengers started “seeing the cockpit fill with blood”.
