One pilot stabbed another pilot on a FlyDubai flight headed to Tel Aviv on Wednesday and may have tried to crash the plane before passengers and crew members subdued him, Israel's prime minister says. Passengers on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv are describing what happened on board a Flydubai airplane that caused them to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The plane signaled a distress call on Wednesday after one of the pilots apparently stabbed the other pilot and seemed to be trying to crash the plane with everyone on board.
Many of the passengers were Israelis, and officials in Israel are calling it an attempted terrorist attack, although the motive is still unknown. MARTIN: NPR's Kat Lonsdorf is with us now from Tel Aviv. KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Hey.
MARTIN: It sounds like a really harrowing situation on... LONSDORF: So, yeah, like you said, the plane was operated by Flydubai. That's an airline based in the UAE.
There's still a lot we don't know, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put out a statement after speaking with some of the passengers who told him that the plane went into a spin and began to plunge as one of the pilots was trying to sabotage the aircraft systems after stabbing his co-pilot. He said some passengers sprang into action and were able to enter the cockpit after the pilot who was stabbed unlocked the cockpit door during the attack. Those passengers managed to subdue the attacker.
Israeli officials released a video of Netanyahu talking to one of those passengers, a man named Yaniv Hayun, once he landed back in Israel. Hayun's clothes were still covered in blood in the video. LONSDORF: He described how he put the attacker in a chokehold and pulled the plane's controls up to try to right it.
Hayun says he's a plumber, but he thought to do that after seeing it in a TV show. He also said that there happened to be another flight crew on the plane who jumped in to help land it. MARTIN: You were at the airport in Tel Aviv last night as the passengers arrived there.
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