Israel PM hails Indian pilot of rerouted Flydubai flight for averting disaster

Israel’s leader credited the pilot and passengers of a Dubai-Tel Aviv flight with averting a catastrophe on Wednesday after they overpowered a co-pilot who allegedly tried to crash the aircraft, forcing an emergency landing.

Passengers described rushing the cockpit after the plane suddenly plummeted, losing around 17,000 feet of altitude in the span of a minute, according to the Flightradar24 website.

Airline flydubai said all the passengers — of whom 166 out of 174 were Israeli, according to media reports — were safe, adding that the reasons for the altercation were unknown.

Israeli officials called the incident “an attempted terrorist attack” while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US broadcaster Fox News it was “too early” to say who was behind the altercation and lauded those who prevented a crash.

“During the flight, as they approached the country, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot, and apparently tried to crash the plane with everyone on board,” Netanyahu said in a separate video message.

“I salute these heroes,” he said of the passengers, adding “they prevented a major disaster”.

He later hailed the wounded pilot – identified as Indian national Smit Machchhar — “for his extraordinary bravery”, saying he fought off his copilot, preventing a “catastrophic mid-air disaster”.

In the Fox News interview Netanyahu also praised an Israeli passenger who helped overpower the attacker, identifying him only as Yanik and describing him as a plumber.

“An amazing act of heroism — of his, of the Indian pilot, of the people who helped them. They stopped a disaster that could have been global,” Netanyahu said.

The Indian embassy said Machchhar was being treated at a hospital in Saudi Arabia, and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi described him as a “HERO” in a social media post on Thursday.

“His valour helped save hundreds of lives,” Modi said.

’Out of control’

AFPTV images showed another flydubai plane carrying the passengers touch down at Tel Aviv airport, hours after their initial flight was diverted to Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk.

Footage shared by Netanyahu’s office showed the premier meeting passengers after their arrival in Tel Aviv and embracing a man in a bloodied shirt.

Passenger Miryam Shira Ohayon described the plane as being “pretty much out of control” as the incident unfolded over Jordan.

“The co-pilot tried to murder the pilot and basically carry out a suicide attack on the plane,” she told reporters by speakerphone held up by her mother at Ben Gurion Airport.

“It was really on the way to crashing, and it was simply the resourcefulness of many people who took control of the co-pilot and neutralised him,” she said.

The airline said it was another “on-duty flydubai crew travelling on the flight who diverted and landed the aircraft safely” and that it was suspending flights to Israel while an investigation took place.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz described the incident as an attempted terror attack, but did not identify his source of that assessment.

The director general of Israel’s foreign ministry also called it “an attempted terrorist attack against Israelis, the United Arab Emirates, and the Abraham Accords”, referring to the normalisation deal the two countries signed in 2020.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he had spoken with his UAE counterpart Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and agreed “to collaborate against extremist elements seeking to harm security and undermine stability”.

US President Donald Trump, after discussing the incident with Netanyahu, said: “It seems as though the co-pilot was perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack-job.”

‘Terrifying’

Passenger Almog Italie told AFP it was like “we were having very big turbulence” before fighting erupted near the cockpit.

“The other passengers from the front took over control,” he told AFP via video call from Saudi Arabia.

Another passenger, Chaim Nazarovitz, said the ordeal had been “very terrifying”, adding that for a moment he felt like he was “not among the living”.

Israeli media reported that the military scrambled fighter jets after concerns emerged that the aircraft might have been hijacked.

In a video filmed inside the plane, a passenger with blood dripping from a head injury pleaded for assistance as they descended into Saudi Arabia.

Israel has no formal ties with the Gulf kingdom, but said the group received a “very warm” welcome there.

The incident comes months into a regional war that erupted in late February with US-Israeli strikes on Iran and just ahead of Israel’s elections due at the end of October.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu said there were “indications” that Israel’s enemies could try to attack ahead of elections and was accused of “fear-mongering” by the opposition chief.