A stabbing, an emergency alert, a horrific mid-air fall.
A pilot on a flight to Israel with about 180 people on board stabbed another pilot in the cockpit on Wednesday after sending out a distress call, sparking fears of a possible hijacking.
Aviatar Alevi, who was on a flydubai flight on Wednesday, described people “screaming, running, panicking, bleeding”.
“At first I thought it was a plane malfunction, but then I started hearing screams about stabbings,” Allevi, 17, told NBC News. “Then I understood the magnitude of what was actually going on.”
“We don’t know what will happen,” he said, adding that the possibility of death is “definitely an option.”
The plane made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, with one of its rudders apparently damaged by the force of the descent.
The passengers, who had flown from Dubai before the crisis, were mobbed by media and fellow flag-waving Israelis as the crisis unfolded. Finally arrived at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport.
They said they feared for their lives after the plane plunged from more than 14,000 feet in 29 seconds at a certain moment, According to FlightRadar24 reports.
“Imagine sitting on a plane and you feel so scared after falling from 5 kilometers. You don’t understand anything,” 16-year-old Peleg Itali told NBC News.
Indian national Captain Smit Mahchar recovered in a Saudi Arabian hospital on Thursday The other pilot, identified only as an Omani citizen, is being questioned elsewhere in the country. Machhal was widely praised for his efforts to prevent the plane from crashing, opening the cockpit door and allowing passengers and crew to rush inside.
As of Thursday morning, details about the pilot program were scant. Questions about possible motives, including whether they were related to terrorism, remain unanswered.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Yaniv Hayun, who rushed into the cockpit and subdued the attacker, on “CBS Nightly News,” saying: “I don’t think it was a hijacking. It looked like a suicide attempt just because of what Yaniv, the hero, described.”
Hayun, who sat next to Netanyahu with his bloodstained shirt, said he had confronted the pilot who launched the attack, according to the Israeli government press office.
“I grabbed the attacker, choked him and pulled him out,” Haiyun said. “I started pulling on the controls.”
“Thank God we made it. We really pulled together and worked as a team,” Haiyun said, adding: “It was between fear and a sense of life and death.”
“We have to win. We have to get through it and win,” he said. Haiyun told Netanyahu that he acted based on what he saw on television and helped stabilize the plane.
Flydubai said the on-duty crew on board successfully landed the aircraft.
Motive is under investigation
Netanyahu says it’s too early to determine what caused the pilot stabbed his colleague and appeared to be trying to take over a flydubai flight, and whether Iran was involved.
“We have indications that Iran, particularly through its proxies, intends to intensify its terrorist attacks against Israel and Israeli nationals abroad,” he said. “But I think it’s too early to tell whether there is Iranian collusion here.”
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called the incident a “jihadi terrorist attack attempt,” without elaborating on how he came to that conclusion.
President Donald Trump also weighed in, saying “An incredible story.”
“It looks like the co-pilot may have been a terrorist, or he may have been an ordinary person, and he stabbed the pilot,” Trump told reporters.
All passengers were Israelis, according to Netanyahu’s office. Four of the individuals hold dual U.S. citizenship, two U.S. officials told NBC News.
Doron Spielman, a spokesman for Netanyahu’s office, had few details about the suspects or a potential motive for the incident, saying there was a “strong opinion” that the incident was a terrorist attack, “but until we brief everyone, we won’t know for sure.”
David Mencer, a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, said separately that Saudi authorities were investigating.
A senior U.S. official briefed on the Israeli investigation and a Saudi official also briefed on the probe said the stabbing increasingly looked like an act of terrorism based on early findings.
Hessa Alyahya, a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in the United States, said authorities were waiting to determine whether the attack was a dispute between the pilots or an operation initiated by Iran or the Houthis.
Israel and Saudi Arabia have no formal diplomatic relations.