Flydubai pilot was stabbed in head, had arm ‘split in two’ before flight saved by ‘superheroes,’ Bibi says: ‘This is Hollywood on steroids’
The Flydubai pilot attacked in the attempted hijacking of his Israel-bound plane was stabbed in the head and had his arm “split in two,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed Thursday — praising the “superhero” passengers who saved the plane in drama like “Hollywood on steroids.”
Heroic Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, was seen almost unconscious and covered in blood after he was attacked Wednesday by his co-pilot, an “Islamist radical” on a suicide mission to bring down their flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, Netanyahu told “Fox and Friends.”
“He was stabbed in the head, and his arm was basically split in two, and there was a lot of blood,” Netanyahu revealed of the horrific injuries the pilot suffered.
Netanyahu could barely hide his admiration at the heroics then displayed by passengers, including a plumber, who rushed in as their jet plummeted 17,000 feet in just two minutes, with no one in control.
They subdued the attacker, tying him up with a headphone cord, while others — including off-duty pilots thankfully flying as passengers — took over the controls to keep the plane from crashing in the Arabian desert.
“These are ordinary civilians, you know Israeli citizens, who became heroes — superheroes,” Netanyahu said with clear astonishment at the bravery.
“They got control over the situation and we could be sitting today in a 9-11 tragedy, with bodies scattered in the desert,” he said.
“This is Hollywood on steroids. You can’t make this up. You can’t believe that it actually happens in real life — but it did.”
The Israeli leader said a dentist who was on board ran over to help stabilize the injured pilot, who was seen in harrowing footage lying on his back in the galley beside a blood-spattered wall with an oxygen mask over his mouth.
Here’s the latest on the Israel-bound plane suspected terror attack:
Two relief pilots on the jet who were slated to skipper a subsequent flight were able to stabilize the Boeing 737 Max for an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
The co-pilot, who was seen in footage bound and clad in a blood-soaked pilot’s uniform, repeatedly begged the crew to kill him, Netanyahu said.
“It’s clear he was suicidal. That’s not a question. It was clear he was going to down that plane,” he told Fox.
The prime minister said the co-pilot, who has not yet been publicly identified, had undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination” before the attack — although he could not say for certain whether or not he was connected to Iran or another terrorist organization.
He had reportedly worked with Flydubai for less than a year.
It’s also unclear whether the co-pilot attacked the pilot with a knife he had brought on board or with an axe standard to the plane’s equipment. Netanyahu also noted Israel has constraints barring pilots from countries it does not have diplomatic relations with, like Oman, from flying into the country.
“Obviously there was a loophole here, and we’re taking care of that, among other things,” Netanyahu said.