Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a hero’s welcome to Yaniv Hion, the man who helped stop the attempted hijacking of Flydubai Flight FZ1073 headed for Israel on Wednesday.
After arriving at Ben Gurion Airport on a return flight from the emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia — still dressed in his blood-stained clothing — Hion described the harrowing experience. He told Netanyahu and the gathered crowd what he and other passengers had done when they realized that the Omani co-pilot had intended to take over the flight and crash the plane.
“There was this tremendous pressure, this force pulling me downward,” Hion said. “And there was another guy standing by the door in a white shirt. I assume he was a pilot, because there were two pilots inside, and by chance there were two other pilots sitting outside in the passenger cabin. I don’t know what they were doing there. He and I pushed the door. The pilot who had been stabbed was right up against the door, so it was difficult for us to open it. But I think — this is my conclusion — that he managed to open it before he collapsed. He managed to do it. Wow, that was incredibly resourceful.”
“When I got inside, I saw the attacker on the controls, between the two seats. There were no pilots in the seats. One was down, and the attacker was on the controls. Another person came in with me. I grabbed the attacker, put him in a chokehold, and first of all pulled him out,” Hion continued.
“What was he doing with the controls? What was he doing?” Netanyahu asked.
“He was trying to destroy the controls in order to disable the plane. That’s what I saw,” Hion said of the co-pilot.
“We pulled him out. It all happened within seconds. The plane’s nose was down like this,” he added with his hand pointing down toward the floor. “I called out to the other Israelis who were with us on the plane. They came over, two more guys jumped in to help me, and I told them to hold him down. Then I jumped back in, grabbed the controls and started pulling back on them.”
Netanyahu seemed surprised, asking, “You pulled the controls? You knew how?”
Hion explained, “I’m a flight instructor. That’s another thing I teach. And the plane started leveling out a little more. Then the pilot told me he was taking control from there.”
Netanyahu hailed Hion as a hero, thanking him for the quick actions that saved dozens of lives and stopped what was reportedly intended to be a 9/11-style attack on Israel.
The prime minister also relayed in a video some of what he was told by the passengers after they landed safely in Israel.
“He told me that the plane went into a spin and began to dive,” Netanyahu said. “He told me that, somehow or other, he managed to break into the cockpit with one of the crew members, and that together they neutralized the stabbing pilot while he was trying to sabotage the plane’s systems. … Another flight crew on board entered the cockpit and managed to stabilize the plane.”
“I salute these heroes, who displayed exceptional resourcefulness and courage,” Netanyahu said. “They saved many lives. They prevented a huge disaster.”
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also praised the heroes who helped avert disaster, telling Fox News, “This is not a miracle. This is a result of the heroism of the Israeli passengers and the Emirates crew.”
It was clear that something had gone wrong with the flight just 90 minutes in, when someone aboard the aircraft transmitted a general distress signal, code 7700. Within a few minutes, the code was switched to 7500 — the international aviation code indicating unlawful interference. The aircraft subsequently disappeared from flight-tracking applications, raising further alarms.
While the flight was still in progress, Hion and others were able to subdue the Omani pilot and correct their course. Another flight crew member aboard the plane stepped in and assisted in flying the aircraft to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, safely.
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