How a 6-year-old's toilet break helped save pilot, passengers on flydubai flight

Six-year-old Nina was in one of the toilets onboard the Dubai-Tel Aviv flydubai flight when bloodcurdling screams erupted from the cockpit, triggering a chain of events that would see passengers help avert what could have been a catastrophic midair disaster.

According to an account given by passenger Tzvika Manes to The New York Times, he was seated in the front row of the flight to Tel Aviv on Wednesday when he heard his daughter screaming.

He immediately leapt from his seat to retrieve his daughter from the toilet. “Dad, we don’t want to die.” Those words became the trigger that sent him rushing towards the cockpit.

The cockpit door was partly open, and the bloodied Indian pilot, Smit Machchhar, suffering from stab wounds, had lurched out and was locked in a struggle with the Omani co-pilot, Manes told the newspaper.

The cockpit was dishevelled and spattered with blood. Machchhar was so badly wounded that he was amazed the man had managed to get out of the cockpit.

“The Indian pilot was struggling — he managed to open the door to get help to save himself,” Manes told the Times, recounting how the bleeding pilot fell out of the cockpit while the other pilot was on top of him, stabbing him.

Manes, two other passengers, Asaf Rajuan and Yaniv Hayun then jumped into the fight.

They grappled with the armed pilot and managed to restrain him, using cables from the flight’s headphone sets to tie him up, according to Manes' account.

Inside the cabin, panic had already taken hold.

As the aircraft rapidly lost altitude, passengers shrieked in terror, with some “flying out of their seats”, Manes said. He described the experience as traumatic and like a “horror movie."

But the struggle did not end with the attacker being restrained. As per Manes, two off-duty pilots then took control of the aircraft and landed it.

The plane eventually arrived in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, where passengers, some still wearing bloodstained clothes, disembarked.

They waited for a replacement Flydubai aircraft to continue their journey to Tel Aviv, and by Wednesday night, all passengers had arrived safely in Israel.

The airline later said it was suspending all flights to and from Israel pending an investigation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the hero captain's bravery and said, “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 midair disaster."

Captain Machchhar is currently hospitalised in the UAE and is recovering well. He was moved a day after being admitted to a hospital in Tabuk.- Ends