"I knew what to do" because he had seen "The Investigations at High Altitude" on television. It is also thanks to what he learned from watching the series about plane crashes that Yaniv Hayoun, a plumber by profession and one of the 174 passengers on the Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, managed to enter the cockpit, confront the co-pilot, and most importantly, briefly take the controls of a Boeing 737 Max 8 that was plummeting . His testimony seems straight out of a movie, but it actually recounts the tense moments of a near-tragedy in the skies above the Arabian Peninsula.
It was still early morning when the plane departing Dubai for Tel Aviv carrying 174 passengers, 27 of them children, most of them Israelis, suddenly went into a dramatic nosedive, while screams came from the cockpit and the aircraft spiraled out of control. At 8:31, while it was flying over the Arabian Peninsula, the general emergency code was sounded from the cockpit. Seven minutes later, the aircraft transmitted the code 7500: hijacking. According to subsequent reconstruction, the commotion and the downward slide prompted an off-duty pilot and four passengers, including Hayoun, to immediately rush to the cockpit . Captain Smith Machachar, an Indian national, covered in blood, had been struck by the co-pilot with the emergency axe. The five wasted no time: they saw the co-pilot trying to destroy the onboard instruments and, after a struggle that lasted about twenty minutes, they tied him up hand and foot. By then two Israeli Air Force fighters had already taken off and the military leaders had gathered.
"When I entered, I saw the terrorist at the controls, between the two seats, but there were no pilots in the seats. I grabbed him and first pushed him out," Hayoun told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who yesterday welcomed the returning passengers to Israel at Ben Gurion Airport. At that point, the plane had lost about 17,000 feet in altitude in just a few dozen seconds. "I went back in, grabbed the controls, and started pulling them," the passenger explained. He remembered watching the TV series that, to make the plane climb back up, you have to pull on the control stick.
As Hayoun attempted to bring the plane back under control, other passengers attacked the co-pilot. "He was trying to destroy the controls to disable the plane," the passenger said. The attacked Indian captain, Smit Machchhar, had shortly before managed to open the cockpit door (locked from the inside for security reasons since the September 11 attacks) to allow passengers to intervene. Another off-duty pilot then took over the controls and flew the plane to an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
The co-pilot appears to have acted as a "lone wolf." Little has been revealed about him: it is known that he is Omani, likely a dual citizen to fly on a route for which Israel only authorizes crews from certain countries. The man was arrested and questioned. A colleague described him as fervently religious: "He prayed excessively throughout the day and refused to shake hands with women."
All hypotheses are currently being examined, including terrorist attacks. Defense Minister Israel Katz declared that "the serious incident on the FlyDubai plane was an attempted jihadist attack, foiled only thanks to the heroism of some Israeli passengers and a backup pilot. According to initial information, the terrorist's intent was to crash the plane with all on board." Benjamin Netanyahu paid "tribute to the heroes on board" who prevented the tragedy, adding that he had "instructed the security apparatus to prepare to deal with any further threats." The prime minister had declared only yesterday that Israel has "indications of possible attacks by its enemies in view of the upcoming elections."
(Unioneonline/D)