An Israeli grandfather who helped seize control of a plunging flydubai jet on Wednesday said his knowledge of aircraft came largely from watching aviation documentaries.
According to Israeli officials, the pilot of Flight FZ1073 attacked his co-pilot with a knife before attempting to take over the aircraft and deliberately crash it.
A catastrophe was narrowly averted when passengers overpowered the pilot and intervened as the plane rapidly lost altitude.
Images taken after the attack showed passengers covered in blood following the struggle to restrain the man and stop him from continuing his assault.
One of those passengers, seen in a bloodstained white T-shirt, has been identified as Yaniv Hayoun. The Israeli sewage-truck driver had no flying experience, but played a decisive role in helping regain control of the aircraft.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Hayoun described the terrifying moments after he entered the cockpit, where he placed the pilot in a headlock and stopped him from reaching the controls while the jet plunged toward the ground.
‘About an hour before landing, a woman started shouting,’ he said. ‘At the front of the aircraft, a woman started screaming something about stabbing: “He’s stabbing him, he’s stabbing him.”’
Hayoun ran toward the cockpit after hearing the screams. But as he neared the door, the aircraft suddenly entered a steep dive.
Hayoun is pictured aboard the Flydubai aircraft with blood on his shirt after helping restrain the knifeman
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Yaniv at Ben Gurion Airport after he broke into the cockpit
‘It lasted several seconds. I don’t know exactly how many seconds it was, but they say we lost 14,000 or 15,000 feet in less than a minute — the aircraft lost that altitude. It was enormous.’
Once the initial shock passed, the grandfather reached the cockpit door and found someone gripping its handle.
‘I opened the door — I pushed the door while he was holding the handle. I pushed it open and went inside. On the floor, right beside the door, was the pilot. He was lying there. He was very seriously injured.’
‘There was no pilot in the pilot’s seat. One pilot was lying beside the door, seriously injured but conscious. His eyes were open. Between the two seats are the aircraft’s controls.’
Hayoun said the attacker had placed his knees on the aircraft’s controls, seemingly trying to interfere with the instruments.
‘He was leaning forward toward the aircraft’s controls. So I grabbed him by the throat,’ he said. ‘I pushed him out toward the exit and started shouting for people to come and help because he was resisting.’
At least three other Israelis then rushed into the cockpit to assist Hayoun in restraining the pilot accused of stabbing his co-pilot.
‘We subdued him with blows. We had to stun him, so he took some blows. We tied him up.’
‘Once he was no longer a threat, we simply stood over him and made sure he couldn’t free himself. He may even have lost consciousness for a few minutes — I don’t know.’
With the attacker finally restrained, Hayoun hurried back to the controls and attempted to help keep the aircraft from plunging toward the ground.
‘I leaned over the seat, reached forward with my hands and pulled the controls toward me because the aircraft was pointing downward. I pulled the controls back toward me. It was only for a few seconds.’
Speaking to the Mail after safely returning to Israel, the grandfather explained how he miraculously knew what to do in the terrifying moments.
‘There’s a programme called Air Crash Investigation…The images are frightening and they make my wife afraid of flying, so I watch it secretly when she isn’t watching with me.
‘I saw on it that when an aircraft is going downward, you have to bring the controls back — pull them backward — to bring the nose level. It really was only for a few seconds. It wasn’t as though I flew the plane.’
He later recounted how his daughter used to ask him how the plane documentary would ‘ever be useful.’
‘Well, this is where it became useful to me,’ he said, ‘What I had seen became useful to me in the only attempt I’ve ever had in my life to survive. It was one shot — one opportunity.’
Despite his insistence he only helped for a’ few seconds’, Hayoun’s heroic actions allowed time for one of the off-duty pilots on the plane to step in and take control.
Israeli passenger Yaniv Hayoun, with blood stains on his shirt arrives at Ben Gurion airport
‘A pilot from the same airline, Flydubai, was there. He came to me — he was in the cockpit — and in English he told me, ‘You can let go. You can leave it. I’m taking over from here.”‘
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‘Otherwise we would have been in trouble. I would have had to land it, and I don’t know how that would have ended.’
Hayoun’s brave actions didn’t end there, however, as he continued to guard the cockpit and help the injured pilot.
‘I stood at the cockpit door. I said, ‘Nobody gets past here toward the pilot.’ We made that clear to everybody, including the cabin crew. Nobody was getting past us. From that moment, nobody was entering the cockpit.’
‘On one side, beside the cockpit door, was the injured pilot. We were all looking after him. There was an Israeli doctor who treated him, bandaged him and made sure he stayed alive.’
For the next hour until the emergency landing, Hayoun and his fellow passengers took care of the wounded man, who has been identified as Indian pilot Smit Machchhar.
‘We were treating the pilot. We made sure he didn’t fall asleep. He wanted to close his eyes, and we made sure he stayed alert.’
‘I said to the pilot: “Look at me.” I told him: “Nobody [will] die today.”‘
Upon arrival at Ben Gurion hours later, Hayoun received a hero’s welcome as he walked through the terminal, before meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who hugged him tightly.
The truck driver later issued a warning to those who ‘don’t understand and don’t see what we Israelis see.’
‘I don’t understand how they don’t see the jihad that is happening. I don’t understand. I want to tell the world: Wake up.
‘And understand who we’re dealing with, and [understand] radical Islam.
‘The whole world needs to wake up and do something about it, deal with this problem at its root. We can’t keep dealing with this terrorism.’
He continued: ‘If most of the world closes its eyes and says, ‘It isn’t my problem,’ then it will eventually find itself facing the same problem.
‘Europe is beginning to feel it now, and I believe they are feeling it — in France, in Belgium. England too. Wake up. The world needs to wake up.’
Netanyahu has meanwhile hailed Indian pilot Smit Machchhar for saving passengers after he was stabbed by his colleague.
Passengers on the flight reached Israel safely on Wednesday after customers and crew foiled the co-pilot’s attempt to crash the aircraft, Israeli officials said.
The struggle began when he stabbed the pilot and sent the jet plunging nearly 14,000 feet (4,267 m) in less than 30 seconds.
Machchhar was covered with blood on the floor when he managed to click the release to open the cockpit door, a Netanyahu spokesperson said.
That allowed passengers and crew to overpower the co-pilot and enable a second pair of flydubai pilots who were on board to land the jet in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
‘He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals,” Netanyahu said in a post on X.
‘All passengers are out of harm’s way,’ Netanyahu had earlier said in a video statement released by his office.
Indian authorities in Saudi Arabia said Machchhar is receiving necessary medical attention in a hospital in the northwestern city of Tabuk and they are in touch with his family and Saudi authorities to extend all possible help.
He is reported to be stable, the Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia said in a post on X.
US President Donald Trump said he spoke to Netanyahu on Wednesday, saying that the motive behind the incident remained unclear.
‘I did speak to Bibi Netanyahu at length about this event, and it seems as though the co-pilot was perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack-job, and he stabbed the pilot,’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Thursday he would present ‘heroism’ awards to four Israelis who helped overpower a flydubai co-pilot and prevented him from crashing the plane they were on.
‘You put yourselves at risk to save others and prevented a terrible disaster. Today, the whole world saw the beautiful and courageous face of Israeli society,’ Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, said in a statement.
‘I am proud of you, and I thank you on behalf of the State of Israel.’