There were 174 passengers aboard the Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday when screams about a stabbing suddenly spread through the cabin. Four Israeli passengers rushed toward the cockpit, each playing a different role in the struggle that followed.
Yaniv Hayun says he choked the suspected attacker and later pulled back on the aircraft’s controls. Zvika Manes and Assaf Rajuan helped overpower and restrain the suspect. Dentist Shota Musaev treated the badly wounded captain and stopped his bleeding. And passengers believe Indian captain Smit Machchhar, despite being stabbed, managed to leave them a way into the cockpit before collapsing.
Together, their accounts describe a frantic fight aboard a plunging aircraft after the Omani co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain, apparently using a crash axe found in the cockpit.
‘I watch Air Crash Investigation’
Hayun, one of the four Israelis who intervened, spent much of the day speaking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He landed in Israel with his shirt stained with blood but said he had not been injured.
Yaniv Hayun
(Photo: Yariv Katz)
Hayun said the cockpit door was not locked when passengers reached it, something he believes may have been the wounded captain’s doing.
“The captain was very close to the door, and that made it difficult for us to open it,” Hayun said. “My conclusion is that he managed to open it for us before he collapsed, with tremendous presence of mind.”
Once inside, Hayun said he saw the Omani co-pilot between the seats.
“He was trying to destroy the instruments to disable the aircraft. I grabbed the attacker, choked him and pulled him out. I called the Israelis and told them. We pinned him down,” he said.
Then Hayun went back into the cockpit.
“I jumped back into the cockpit. I watch ‘Air Crash Investigation,’ so I pulled the controls and the plane began to level out. After that, a pilot who was traveling on the plane told me he was taking control,” Hayun said.
Two pilots who were aboard then took over the cockpit and eventually landed the aircraft safely.
“I think because of my children, I behaved the way I did,” Hayun said.
‘The plane was 90 degrees down’
Assaf Rajuan, an insurance agency owner and tennis enthusiast, had been returning from a vacation in Thailand when the flight turned into what he described as a “horror movie.”
“We heard screams from near the restroom. A girl’s mother came out screaming, and we understood something had happened to the plane,” he said. “It lost control, went down at a 90-degree angle, and we understood there was no control over the aircraft and something had happened.”
Hours earlier, he was still celebrating in Thailand. Assaf Rajuan at Ben Gurion Airport
(Photo: AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Assaf Rajuan welcomed home in Petah Tikva with celebrations for the returning heroes
Rajuan was among those who helped overpower the suspected attacker.
“The cockpit door was open and we started seeing the cockpit fill with blood,” he said. “People went in. There was a guy who got there before me named Zvika Manes. I went in with two other guys and we tried to overpower the attacker, and we succeeded.”
“We also had help from some of the crew. We managed to keep the attacker neutralized for 50 minutes and land in Saudi Arabia,” he said.
Rajuan said he was still struggling to process what happened.
“I was in Thailand a few hours earlier, and after that I was in a horror movie,” he said. “Of course, it wasn’t just me. Bigger and stronger guys than me helped, blocked the doors and decided to go all the way, because life is stronger than anything and we wanted to fight for it. For our families, our children, the crew.”
Assaf Rajuan
(Photo: Orna Danino)
“It’s hard to believe it ended this way, but it did,” he added. “I saw all the bursts of blood, the cuts, the Indian pilot. I know the plane lost control and plunged. Luckily, the right people were there at the right time.”
Headphone cables used to restrain suspect
Zvika Manes, CEO of Bank Leumi’s underwriting company, also rushed the suspected attacker and helped restrain him using cables from the multimedia headphones distributed on the flight.
The incident began for Manes when his wife went to the restroom with their daughter and heard a confrontation in the cockpit.
“There was a lot of blood. The plane plunged rapidly like you see in horror movies. There were screams. It was a very difficult event until the pilot stabilized the plane,” Manes said.
“We lost our angles. He was really trying to fly the aircraft toward the ground, and people were thrown around and screaming,” he said of the co-pilot.
“We later tied him up and neutralized him. It took quite a bit of physical force. He was a strong man, probably full of adrenaline,” Manes said.
He said a doctor and nurse aboard the flight then worked to stabilize the wounded captain, who had suffered stab wounds across his body.
Manes, like Hayun, said he believed the stabbed captain managed to open the cockpit door, giving passengers the chance to intervene.
The dentist who treated the captain
Dentist Shota Musaev initially rushed forward to help fight the suspected attacker. After the man was restrained, Musaev turned his attention to the badly wounded captain.
“The pilot was in very serious condition, with heavy bleeding from his head and hands,” Musaev told ynet. “I was the only doctor on the plane. I managed to stop the bleeding, and the pilot was in fairly stable condition until close to the landing, when his condition deteriorated somewhat.”
Shota Musaev
(Photo: Yariv Katz)
Musaev said the captain remained able to communicate while lying on the floor and told those around him that he was 39 and had two children.
“The attacker stabbed him and cursed him,” Musaev said. “At that moment you don’t think, you just act. There were four of us who took control of the entire situation, and if we hadn’t, we wouldn’t be talking to you.”
“I saw something was wrong and ran forward. I didn’t wait for someone to call me,” he said. “I came to fight the attacker when I heard the screams. I didn’t come to provide medical treatment. But after we tied him up, I treated the stabbed pilot.”
Musaev said the suspect continued struggling and trying to break free.
“We tied him several times, both his legs and his hands. He was thrashing around, so we tied him even more tightly. Then he calmed down and understood that he was in our hands,” he said.
He said Saudi medical teams later treated the captain and that he was told the pilot had survived and was no longer in immediate danger.
The wounded captain who may have left a way in
Captain Smit Machchhar remains hospitalized in Saudi Arabia in serious condition, although reports Wednesday evening said he was out of immediate danger.
Captain Smit Machchhar
(Photo: LinkedIn/Smit Machchhar)
He has not yet publicly given his version of events.
But according to passengers, his actions may have been decisive. They believe that despite being wounded in the confrontation with the Omani co-pilot, Machchhar managed to leave the cockpit accessible before collapsing.
That opening allowed the Israeli passengers to get inside, overpower the suspected attacker and make way for another flight crew to take control of the aircraft.
Each person aboard the flight played a different part in those minutes: restraining the suspect, pulling back on the controls, stopping the bleeding or, passengers believe, leaving the cockpit door open long enough for help to get through.