Netanyahu said passengers and a pilot thwarted an apparent attempt to crash a FlyDubai flight. He said it was not a hijacking.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that a pilot aboard a Dubai-to-Tel Aviv FlyDubai flight stabbed his co-pilot and attempted to sabotage the aircraft’s systems in what he described as a prevented “9/11 disaster,” while explicitly stating he did not believe the incident constituted a hijacking. Netanyahu said the attacking pilot “wasn’t sitting in the pilot seat, trying to stabilize the plane” but instead was “trying to jam the equipment” during the flight, which was carrying 174 people, almost all Israeli, when it plunged thousands of feet before being brought under control.
Netanyahu identified the stabbed pilot as Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, who he said fought back despite severe wounds and helped prevent catastrophe, calling him a “true hero.” A passenger, identified by Israel’s Government Press Office as Yaniv Hayoun, told Netanyahu he and another passenger, later revealed to be an off-duty FlyDubai pilot, forced open the cockpit door after Machchhar collapsed beside it, then pulled back on the aircraft’s controls to level the plane before the off-duty pilot took over. Netanyahu said he met Hayoun at the airport and told him, “Without you it could have been another 9/11.” FlyDubai said on-duty crew members “successfully secured” the aircraft, which landed safely at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia, where passengers were transferred to a replacement flight back to Israel.
The suspected attacker, who has not been publicly named, was detained and is being interrogated by Saudi authorities, with the United Arab Emirates agreeing to let Israel participate in the questioning, Netanyahu said. Israeli officials described the incident as a suspected terrorist attack; Defense Minister Israel Katz called it “a jihadist terrorist attack attempt” without detailing how he reached that conclusion, while Netanyahu said investigators had no specific evidence linking Iran to the incident and that it remained too early to determine any foreign involvement. President Donald Trump, asked about the episode, called it “an incredible story” and said Netanyahu had briefed him on it at length, adding that the co-pilot was “perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack job.” Machchhar remained in stable condition at a hospital in Saudi Arabia as of Wednesday, according to the Indian Embassy in Riyadh, and Flydubai flights to and from Israel were temporarily suspended.
This report is based on information from CNN, Axios, Fox News, NBC News and i24NEWS.