‘We are a nation of lions’: Israeli man who stormed into cockpit, held attacker pilot in chokehold, tells Netanyahu
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "‘We are a nation of lions’: Israeli man who stormed into cockpit, held attacker pilot in chokehold, tells Netanyahu")
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets Yavin at the Ben Gurion airport Photograph: (X)
Some Israeli passengers initially refused another Flydubai flight but boarded after Riyadh rejected demand for an Israeli rescue aircraft. The repatriation flight departed Tabuk after the Mossad completed background checks on the Flydubai crew and cleared the aircraft for departure.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met passengers at Ben Gurion airport after they got off their repatriation flight and hailed the man who broke into the cockpit, held the attacker pilot in a chokehold and then dragged him out.
A video on Netanyahu’s official social media account shows him hugging and greeting passengers. One of them was a man with a blood-stained t-shirt.
“Met Yaniv, who broke into the cockpit on the flight from Dubai to Israel,” the post said.
Netanyahu greeted Yaniv, saying he sees “a great hero”, and asked him how he did it.
“We are a nation of lions, aren’t we?” Yaniv replied.
Netanyahu then pointed to the bloodstain on Yaniv’s t-shirt and asked, “Wow, is that from him?”
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Yaniv replied, “It’s from him, yes.”
“It’s simply unbelievable what you did,” Netanyahu said in admiration.
Explaining how he broke through the door, Yaniv said, “The pilot who was stabbed was very close to the door, so it was hard for us to open it.”
“But before he (the stabbed pilot) collapsed, he managed to open the door.”
‘Attacker was trying to destroy aircraft systems, crash the plane’
“When I entered, I saw the attacker on the instruments, between the two seats... there were no pilots in the seats,” Yaniv recalled.
“One was down, one was on the instruments. And another guy came in with me. I grabbed the attacker, put him in a chokehold, and pulled him—first and foremost—outside.”
He said the attacker was “trying to destroy the instruments in order to disable the plane.” The attacker was trying to destroy the aircraft systems and crash the plane.
Yaniv said that he then called out “to the Israeli guys with us on the plane, and together they pinned him down.”
Yaniv then rushed back to the controls. “I pulled the controls up and stopped the plane’s dive.”
“You pulled the controls?” Netanyahu asked in an elated tone.
“I watch Air Crash Investigation, Mr Prime Minister,” Yaniv replied. “And the plane started to level out, a bit more, and then the pilot told me he was taking control from there.”
Meanwhile, in a video shot on the flight after the attacker pilot was overpowered, an Israeli passenger said, “We’re on the flight from Dubai. We took control of the situation here. There was an attacker with a knife who stabbed one of the pilots.”
“A few of us just jumped in and pulled him out of the cockpit. Everything is OK now. The terrorist has been neutralized.”
Netanyahu praises attacked pilot Captain Smit Machchhar
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also praised Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian national and the pilot who was attacked mid-flight, and called Machchhar a “true hero” of “extraordinary bravery”.
“Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker—preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster,” Netanyahu wrote on X.
‘Today, our hearts are with him and his family,” Israel's parliament speaker Amir Ohana said in a post on X.
President Herzog thanks ‘immense courage’ of heroes
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also thanked the “heroes who acted with immense courage” on the flight to Tel Aviv that was diverted to Saudi Arabia.
“Hours of worry ended in a great miracle and exceptional heroism,” Herzog wrote on X.
“I thank from the depths of my heart the heroes who acted with immense courage in these critical moments,” he added.
“We will continue to act together with our Emirati partners to learn from the event and fight terrorism.”
Celebrations at Ben Gurion airport
As passengers disembarked the repatriation flight from Saudi Arabia, they were greeted with crowds playing music, singing, dancing and waving Israeli flags.
The initial flight, from Dubai to Tel Aviv, was diverted to Tubak, in Saudi Arabia, for an emergency landing following the stabbing of a pilot onboard.
The passengers, including 27 children and Israelis who helped overpower the suspected attacker, returned after an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia; some initially refused another Flydubai flight but boarded after Riyadh rejected an Israeli rescue aircraft.
The rescue flight departed Tabuk after the Mossad completed background checks on the Flydubai crew and cleared the aircraft for departure.
‘Five minutes felt like hell,’ says passenger
Another passenger told journalists outside the airport that the incident on board lasted maybe five minutes but felt “like hell".
Oran Choen said he heard a shout of “Allahu Akbar” before the plane started to dive, about an hour before the flight was due to land, but could not specify who had shouted.
“I can’t tell you the feelings I felt in that moment... I am 18 years old... it was a very tough moment. Maybe it was five minutes but it feels like hell,” he added.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered authorities to “ramp up” security on both on Israeli carriers and non-Israeli carriers.
The order was confirmed by a spokesperson for the prime minister’s office after the flydubai flight incident.
