Flydubai plane: Israel assumes terrorist attack

dpa | After the violence on a plane to Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised the fearlessness of the pilot who was allegedly attacked by his colleague. “He is a true hero,” said Netanyahu on Platform X in the evening. Despite serious stab wounds, the Indian captain resisted, opened the cockpit door and allowed passengers to overpower the attacker. Modi wrote on X that India was proud of the pilot.

“In the face of grave danger and despite serious injuries, he demonstrated immense courage and unwavering determination to protect the lives of others,” Modi stressed. With his heroic efforts he helped to avert a major tragedy.

Netanyahu also emphasized that the pilot had prevented a catastrophe. “He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals.” He wished the man a speedy recovery. The Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia, where the plane made an emergency landing, announced in the evening that the pilot's condition was stable.

The Emirati flight Flydubai was en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday when the altercation occurred in the cockpit. Israel's government assumes an attempted jihadist terrorist attack - but important questions remain unanswered.

According to Netanyahu's earlier statements, one of the two pilots stabbed his colleague as the plane approached Israel in the morning. He apparently intended to crash the plane with the passengers. According to consistent reports, the plane went into a nosedive. After the suspected attacker was overpowered, the plane was able to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia - a second crew traveling in the cabin took over the controls.

The passengers were taken to Tel Aviv in the evening on a replacement flight from Tabuk in Saudi Arabia and were greeted with cheers. Such a direct flight is a rarity between the two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations.

A woman on the plane with her four daughters told the Times of Israel newspaper that there were "two miracles": that there were Israelis on board who heroically went into the cockpit - and that there were other pilots on board who were able to land the plane.

Netanyahu met a passenger at Tel Aviv airport who had forced his way into the cockpit. The US broadcaster CNN published a video of the meeting in which Yaniv Hayun, wearing blood-stained clothing, describes how he and others stopped the attacker. When he got into the cockpit, the attacker was working on the on-board instruments - Hayun suspected that the man wanted to make the aircraft unusable.

In an interview with the US broadcaster Fox News, Netanyahu later said of his compatriot: “That was tremendous courage that prevented another attack like the one on September 11th.” Almost 3,000 people were killed in the terrorist attacks in the USA in 2001 when terrorists from the Islamist network al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger planes and piloted two of them into the towers of the World Trade Center. Another plane hit the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

Hayun said he put the attacker in a chokehold and dragged him out of the cockpit. Then - the aircraft was in a dive at the time - he grabbed the controls in the cockpit and began to pull back the levers, then a pilot took over. When asked how he knew what to do, Hayun referred to a TV documentary series about aviation accidents.

According to Netanyahu, the attacker was arrested and questioned by Saudi Arabian security authorities. The responsible authorities in the Gulf state initially did not comment on what happened.

There is currently no reliable information about the alleged attacker's motive - and what exactly his intention was has not yet been clarified. The Israeli news portal “ynet” reported that the suspected co-pilot came from Oman. According to the initial Israeli assessment, it was a lone perpetrator, as the TV station Kan reported. There is no indication that a state or a terrorist organization could be the mastermind of the incident, it said, citing security circles.

Still, when asked by Fox News host Sean Hannity whether there was any evidence of Iranian involvement in the incident, Netanyahu said: "Well, we don't know yet. ... But it's no secret that Iran wants to target Israelis abroad and here."

Flydubai said it would suspend flights to and from Israel while the investigations continued.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned any act that endangers the lives of civilians and the safety of civil aviation, he said through his spokesman. He said he was relieved that a tragedy had been avoided.

After a telephone conversation with his Israeli colleague Gideon Saar, Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul was also relieved "that the attempted kidnapping and possibly something much worse could be prevented." Now the background needs to be clarified quickly and completely.

The CDU politician added that it was thanks to the bravery of the pilot and other passengers that a crash could have been prevented at the last second. A crash would have been a “total catastrophe” that would have cost many lives, but would also have caused considerable unrest in the tense situation in the region and in the Israeli election campaign. In Israel, new parliamentary elections will be held at the end of October.