JERUSALEM (AP) — A dentist and other passengers wrestled with a violent copilot. A plumber seized the controls of the plane as it plunged toward the desert. And that's after the captain managed to open the cockpit door while being stabbed, helping to save all 174 people on board the Israel-bound flight.
As the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, put it: “Hollywood isn’t creative enough to come up with stories like this!”
While major questions
remained unanswered Thursday about the attacker and his motivation, the tale of everyday heroes saving the FlyDubai flight from disaster quickly became legend.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warmly embraced the plumber shortly after the passengers’ arrival in Tel Aviv late Wednesday, and later posted a five-star review for Yaniv Hayoun’s professional services, calling him “a hero who has saved many lives.”
“He can help you too — I highly recommend him!” Netanyahu added on X.
Hayoun was among several Israelis recommended for the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism, while Indian Capt. Smit Machchhar was praised by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “a HERO.”
Many of the details emerged in a rush shortly after the passengers, most of them Israeli, landed back home to cheers and waving flags.
Hayoun, apologizing for his bloody shirt, within minutes was telling the prime minister and journalists what happened.
There had been little time for him and the others to think. Passengers screamed after spotting the copilot stabbing the captain, and the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv began a steep dive. Some believed they were about to die.
A handful of Israelis reacted, hurtling up the aisle after the badly wounded captain managed to open the cockpit door. That was crucial, as cockpit doors are typically locked to prevent hijackings.
They had to struggle, Hayoun said, with the captain’s body resting against it.
Hayoun said the copilot appeared to be trying to damage the plane’s controls. He grabbed the copilot, and others began struggling with the man.
Hayoun then tackled the controls. He had no training, but he remembered what he had seen in movies.
“I asked him, how did you know how to do that? And he said, ‘Well, I, I watched these air disaster films,’” Netanyahu told Fox News on Thursday.
It was not clear who among the passengers had security experience, though military service is compulsory for most men and women in Israel.
Soon, crew who had been traveling on the plane stepped in to stabilize it, issuing a mayday call and seeking a place to land.
Hayoun said two British pilots seated in the row in front of him stepped in to land the plane. First one and then the other took control, “and thanks to him, he managed to stabilize the plane by the skin of his teeth.”
The handful of Israeli passengers grappled with the copilot for several minutes before subduing him and binding his hands with the cord from a set of headphones.
One of them, Dr. Shota Musayev, a dentist, also attended to the captain, who appeared to have lost a lot of blood. “He was just praying the whole time and was in contact with me, and I was afraid we would really lose him,” Musayev said.
In video that Musayev shot and shared with The Associated Press, the captain lay on the floor of the cabin, saying his head was in pain.
Musayev later told journalists he and the other responders knew they'd had just seconds to act before a “critical event.”
But even with the copilot bound and subdued, they were scared that other attackers might be on the plane. They sent other people around the cabin to stand by.
“We didn’t know where we were going to land. Underneath us there was only desert. We were afraid that they were taking us to a hostile country,” Hayoun told journalists. “We didn’t know who to trust. We didn’t know if the pilot was with us or not … We started suspecting the flight attendants, too.”
Finally, just about an hour after the plane issued a distress call, it made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
Now, investigators from across the region are working to understand what led to the attack. The copilot still has not been publicly identified.
As of Thursday evening, the world had not yet heard from the central hero, the captain, who India’s Embassy in the United Arab Emirates said was “in good health and recovering well.”
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Associated Press reporter Areej Hazboun in Jerusalem contributed.
