A FlyDubai commercial flight number FZ1073 Dubai to Tel Aviv was rescued from near disaster over Israel by a brave pilot bleeding and a Israel Plumber returning from a vacation
Most of the 174 passengers were Jews and Israelis 166 of them heading to Israel, some returning home, others coming for a holiday. They were two and a half hours into the three hour flight.
The plane was approaching Tel Aviv Israels largest a city with a population of 4.3 million people. Behind the cockpit door sat Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, and First Officer the Omani co pilot we will call him Mohammad since his real name has not been disclosed. As Dubai tries to play down the fact it was a terrorist attack ordered out of Iran. The Co Pilot was new he joined Fly Dubai, about eight months ago. The warning signs he was a radicalized terrorist were everywhere. He declined to shake hands with female colleagues because of his religious observance. And was described as praying “excessively.” He carried the Koran everywhere he went.
Captain Machchhar was looking forward to time off with his family. Copilot Mohammad was dreaming about his 72 virgins,
Mohammad had secretly joined ISIS. His intended victims were the Jewish passengers entrusted to his care and the people in downtown Tel Aviv. He imagined turning the aircraft into a weapon, repeating the horror of September 11 against another skyline. He had concealed that purpose behind the uniform of a man paid to bring people safely home.
Captain Machchhar noticed his silence. He asked a routine question and received no answer. When he turned, Rahman was already moving.
The attack came so suddenly that the captain had no time to understand the first blow. Then he felt the wound. Blood soaked his shirt. He tried to push his colleague away, struck the side of his seat, and fell against the cockpit floor.
Outside, the cabin innocent civilians remained unaware that they faced a near death life changing experience.
The reality check came when the aircraft dropped plunging more than 14,000 feet (4,300 meters) in less than 30 seconds. Thankfully the pilot unlatched the cockpit door. And a Israeli Plumber by the name of Yaniv Hayun rushed into the cockpit and pull up on the stick with seconds to spare. Yaniv said he watched the TV show Air Crash investigations and remembered shows where pilots pulled back on the controls to take a plane out of a dive.
The first scream came from the front of the aircraft. A second followed it. The cabin tilted, and a cup struck the ceiling before falling into the aisle. People reached for seats, for relatives, for anything that felt fixed.
Inside the cockpit, Mohammad had seized the controls. “Allahu akbar!” he shouted. “I will die a shahid!” His declaration accompanied an attempt to kill the passengers and people on the ground. His words made his intention unmistakable to the wounded captain.
The Captain tried to rise up his arm gave way. He could feel blood beneath his hand and hear cries through the closed door. The man who had attacked him was still within reach, but Captain Macchhar no longer had the strength to wrestle him away alone.
The captain understood what was happening. Mohammad wanted to kill the Jewish passengers helpless locked out of the cabin. There was nothing they could do. The aircraft had become a prison moving through the sky. Every person aboard depended on someone at the front stopping the descent.
Macchhar reached for the cockpit door release. Mohhamad saw him move and shoved him back. The captain struck the floor again. For a moment he lay still, his face against the cold surface, listening to passenger screams behind him.
He moved again.
Pain narrowed his world to the distance between his hand and the release. He could not save the aircraft from the floor. He could give someone else a chance to reach it. He stretched, dragged himself closer, and miraculously opened the cockpit door.
An Israeli passenger standing near the front saw the captain’s blood first. Then he saw the struggle and understood that the flight was being attacked from within.
There was no announcement telling him what to do. No time to appoint a leader. Behind him were people he loved. Ahead of him was the man trying to kill them.
Yaniv Hayun rushed through the doorway. He collided with Mohammad before he could turn fully toward the open door. Another Israeli followed. A third came forward from the aisle, stumbling as the aircraft moved beneath him. They crowded into a space too small for the fight unfolding inside it.
Mohmmad struck back. A passenger’s head hit the doorway. Blood ran down his face, and he wiped at it with his sleeve because he could no longer see clearly. Another man lost his footing, caught himself, and returned to the struggle. Nobody knew whether their effort would be enough.
In the cabin, a woman heard the fighting and called for people to stay back from the aisle. She tried to keep the path clear. A parent held a child so tightly that the child protested, and the sound of that protest was suddenly precious. Other passengers prayed. One man kept saying that he had to get home, as if repeating the words could hold the aircraft in the air. Others were reciting the Shema Israel a prayer commonly recited when Jews face death. Hear o Israel the lord is our GOD the lord is one. Blessed be the name of his glorious kingdom forever and ever.
At the front, the passengers fought to restrain the attacker. They had no rehearsed plan. They could see the wounded captain trying to move, and they understood that he needed room. They shouted to one another over the noise, their words breaking into commands and cries.
The Captain pulled himself upright. A Jewish passenger a dentist helped him. His shirt was heavy with blood, and his breathing had become shallow. He looked toward the controls and then toward the people holding Mohammad. One of them met his eyes and saw his radicalized hatred.
“We’ve got him,” the passenger said. He could not know whether that promise would hold. He made it anyway.
Fortunately relief pilots were on board they regained control of the aircraft. A second qualified pilot, traveling aboard as a passenger reached the cockpit and helped him. Together they began to recover the the badly damaged airplane. While the others kept Mohammad restrained. Please note they did not kill their attempted assign but rendered him first aid.
The descent eased. Nobody in the cabin trusted the change at first. People waited for another violent movement, another scream, another sign that the fight had been lost. Then the aircraft steadied. Someone began to cry from relief. Other’s cheered grateful to still be alive.
Surviving the dive did not mean the ordeal was over. The captain was wounded. The passengers were frightened. The attacker was still aboard, restrained and watched. The cripled aircraft full of people had to reach the ground safely, and every unfamiliar sound now made someone look up.
The crew spoke to the cabin. They told the passengers that control had been restored and asked them to remain seated. The announcement was brief. It gave people something they could understand and something they could do. It did not pretend that nothing had happened.
The flight turned back toward Dubai. The supporting pilot took over much of the flying while Captin Machchhar received help for his injuries. The captain stayed involved as his condition allowed. Other crew members moved through the cabin, checking passengers and trying to restore order without making promises they could not keep.
A woman asked whether the bleeding captain would live. A crew member told her he was being helped. A man wanted to call his wife. Another stared at his own hands, astonished to find blood on them. He had entered the cockpit so quickly that he could barely remember deciding to go.
The passengers who had fought Rahman did not feel like heroes. One was shaking too hard to hold a cup. Another kept returning to the same question: what if he had hesitated? The question had no useful answer, but it would not leave him alone.
As the crippled aircraft suffering severe tail damage continued toward Dubai, the cabin became quiet. People listened to the engines. They watched the crew. A child asked whether they were still going on vacation, and her father said they would talk about it when they landed. It was the first ordinary conversation he had managed since the dive.
At the front, the pilots concentrated on bringing everyone safely down. The imagined tower target in Tel Aviv was behind them. The attacker had failed to reach it. But the passengers would not feel safe until the wheels touched a runway and stayed there.
When the landing finally came, a few people applauded. Others were too exhausted to move.
The aircraft rolled to a stop.
The doors opened to emergency personnel. Medical workers reached the wounded captain, and authorities took the restrained attacker into custody. Passengers left the aircraft in uneven groups. Some walked quickly, desperate to put distance between themselves and the cockpit. Others stopped at the door and looked back.
The Brave pilot from India was taken for treatment. He had survived the attack, but the wounds were severe, and his recovery would take time. The passengers who had been injured in the struggle also received care. Nobody died. Survival did not erase the memories of the blood, the pain, or the hours when death had seemed unavoidable.
In a room away from the aircraft, people began calling home. Several could not complete their first sentence. A woman said her husband’s name, heard him answer, and started crying. A father told his family that their daughter was safe. He had to repeat it because the person listening could not believe him.
The Israelis who had entered the cockpit sat among the others. Their bloodstained clothes made them easy to recognize. Passengers approached them, shook their hands, embraced them, and sometimes stood beside them without finding any words at all.
One of the men kept saying that anyone would have done the same. A woman who had watched him run forward answered that she had not run forward. She thanked him. He lowered his eyes, unsure how to accept it.
The Dubai investigation has so far been a cover up. True investigation by the Israeli Mossad will examine Mohammad ISIS and Iranian connection and his intended target.
For the passengers waiting in Dubai, the immediate question was simpler: when could they go home? They had survived, but they were still far from the people who needed to see them.
Arrangements were made for another flight to Israel. Some passengers hesitated before boarding. The sight of another aircraft brought the fear back. They went together, watching one another, accepting help where they needed it.
This time, the destination would be a homecoming and heroes welcome in Israel…
In Israel, relatives waited beyond the arrivals doors. They checked their phones, looked toward the corridor, and asked whether the flight had landed. Information had reached them in fragments. Knowing someone was alive by telephone was different from seeing that person walk toward you.
Then the passengers appeared. A little girl saw her grandmother and ran. Her father followed more slowly, still carrying the bag he had packed for a holiday. The grandmother knelt and held the child against her. Nobody asked about the vacation.
A woman reached her husband and put both hands against his face. He tried to tell her that he was all right, but she was already pulling him close. Behind them, another family embraced a man whose shirt still bore the marks of the cockpit fight. His son looked at the blood and asked whose it was.
The man said they would talk later. For a while, there was only the work of finding one another. People called names across the hall. Suitcases stood unattended beside reunions. A passenger who had held himself together through
This is the ending of an attempted atrocity by Iran: an ISIS attacker defeated, the aircraft recovered, every life preserved, and wounded people given a chance to heal. The fear does not vanish at the arrivals hall. Some survivors will remember the dive whenever they board another flight. Others will wake hearing the scream that came from the cockpit.
But they will wake. The people the attacker intended to kill are home. Downtown Tel Aviv remains standing. Families that might have been waiting for terrible news are holding the people they love.
Iran has got to be stopped. Imagin what they will do if they get nukes!
