JERUSALEM (AP) — Who are the mystery pilots who stepped in to stabilize the FlyDubai flight as it hurtled toward disaster?
As of Saturday, three days after the uniformed crew members rushed to the cockpit to steady the Israel-bound plane carrying 182 people after a sickening plummet, they still haven't been publicly identified. FlyDubai has called them only on-duty crew members traveling on the plane. It’s not clear why the airline hasn't said more.
One passenger at the front of the plane, though, described the men’s actions in an interview with The Associated Press, giving one of the most detailed accounts of the yet-unsung heroes.
“This is one of the miracles,” said Daniel Schlichter, who was seated in the second row.
“That not in every flight they bring two extra pilots. In this case, they brought them because they should have brought the plane back from Tel Aviv to Dubai, and this is the only reason they were there.” The practice is called deadheading.
The two men responded after screaming passengers discovered what was unfolding in the cockpit. They said the copilot was attacking the captain over and over, and blood was everywhere. The captain, while badly wounded, managed to unlock the cockpit door.
After a passenger grabbed the copilot and pulled him out, and others grappled with the man to subdue him, Schlichter said that one of the traveling pilots practically hurtled the scrum to enter the cockpit and seize the controls.
“He was actually kind of jumping above the guys that were handling the terrorist, and he reached out to the pilot area and started to take over,” Schlichter said. “And then the other guy, the other pilot, joined in and they closed the door because they didn’t want anybody else to be there.”
Schlichter, like others, wasn’t sure where the two men had come from. But whoever the first one was, he moved very quickly.
“He acted really like a hero, taking over the plane and reacted like he understood exactly what is going on, and I think we owe him our lives not less than the other heroes that went on the flight,” Schlichter said.
Once the two entered the cockpit and closed the door, Schlichter wasn’t sure who did what inside. It took “quite a lot of minutes,” maybe 10 or more, to stabilize the plane after a descent so extreme that part of its rudder was torn away.
A mayday call was made as the men frantically sought a place to land.
Meanwhile, some of the frightened and wary passengers wondered about them and whether they could be trusted.
“After they managed to stabilize the airplane, actually they did not have any communication with us, and I have to tell you, I was worried about this,” Schlichter said.
He worried about an even worse situation — that the men might be “hijacking the plane into maybe Iran, or I don’t know where, because we’re actually not too far.”
But after about 45 minutes, he said, the pilots announced that they would be landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, and everything was going to be OK.
With that, Schlichter said, he decided to trust them. And it turned out to be true.
