There were many heroes on FlyDubai Flight 1073 to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, including the pilot who was stabbed and yet managed to unlock the cockpit, and the Israeli passenger and Emirati crew member who burst in to intervene and save nearly 180 people on board, including four Americans. It was a terrorist attack in the mold of 9/11, but it was foiled even more successfully than Flight 93.
Twenty-five years later, the Islamist threat is still a clear and present danger.
“The terrorist had one intention: to crash the aircraft with everyone on board,” said Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.
The Leftmedia, however, was up to its usual disinformation. “Breaking news:” posted The New York Times on X yesterday. “A plane flying from Dubai to Israel was diverted after an altercation between the pilot and co-pilot, Israeli officials said.”
No, there was not a mere “altercation between” the pilots, though many other media outlets used that or similar wording. One pilot — a yet-to-be-named Omani national — stabbed his fellow pilot, Captain Smit Machchhar of India, before turning the plane into a dive of roughly 15,000 feet in just one minute.
Reeling from multiple stab wounds and still struggling with his attacker, Machchhar managed to unlock the cockpit. Yaniv Hayun, an Israeli passenger, entered the cockpit, held the Omani terrorist in a chokehold, helped others remove him from the cockpit, and then took the controls to pull the plane out of its dive.
He’s a plumber, not a pilot. But he did say he watched some air disaster documentaries. “I pulled the yoke backward,” he said. “You see it on ‘Mayday.’”
In another interview, Hayun said, “I had seen ‘Air Crash Investigation’ on TV. I pulled back on the controls, and then another pilot came in and said he was taking control of the aircraft.”
Wow.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted, “Another crew member who was on the plane entered the cockpit and managed to stabilize the aircraft.” After that, two Israeli airline pilots who were aboard as passengers flew the plane to Saudi Arabia for a safe landing.
Some think that, had it not been a relatively new Boeing 737 MAX 8, the plane might not have survived the dive or the damage it caused, including losing most of its rudder.
Machchhar is recovering from his wounds, while the Omani is in Saudi custody.
One of the first questions that comes to mind is whether Iran was involved. Earlier this week, observant community members thwarted a terror plot at a Royal Air Force base in the United Kingdom used by U.S. warplanes against Iran. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said yesterday there are “strong indications” Iran backed the perpetrators, who were armed and apparently intent on killing Americans. Why the UK government released the five men is anyone’s guess. Did Iran also back or motivate this Omani pilot?
The editors of National Review note, “The United Arab Emirates was the first nation to join the Abraham Accords with Israel, and just this week Netanyahu traveled to Abu Dhabi to meet with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. It’s possible that the copilot terrorist behind the attack, an Omani national, was trying to drive a wedge in the relationship and/or possibly discourage other Arab nations, notably Saudi Arabia, from joining the accords.”
Even landing the plane in Saudi Arabia stoked controversy because that nation does not have normalized relations with Israel, and it would initially not allow a plane from Israel to come for the stranded passengers. That was eventually resolved with another FlyDubai craft. Here’s hoping it’s a spark toward normalization.
Another question is why an Omani was in the cockpit at all. Israel and Oman have no diplomatic relations, due to Oman’s hostility, so Omani pilots are not supposed to fly commercial planes into Israel. Investigators are looking into how he was assigned to the route — with a weapon in hand, to boot.
Iran is not defeated, though it has been severely hobbled by U.S. military efforts. It has been the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism for decades, so it’s reasonable to speculate that Tehran was behind this attempted airliner crash.
In any case, the whole episode is a great reminder that Iran should not have nuclear weapons, which is President Donald Trump’s objective with his military mission. A terrorist with a knife can inflict horrific damage. One with a nuke could do the unthinkable.
