Passengers recall sickening plunge, screams during flydubai plane hijacking: ‘I was just sure I was going to die’
Passengers aboard the flydubai plane at the center of a suspected terrorist attack described the chaos on board as a bloody mess as they thanked the heroes who helped avert a tragedy on Wednesday.
Miriam Ohayon, whose brother was killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, said all hell broke loose on board when Flight 1073 began to nosedive en-route to Tel Aviv.
After the flight captain, Smit Machchhar, released the cockpit doors, Ohayon recalled the shrieks of terror at the sight of the bloody pilot.
“We heard screams on the plane, and when they opened the cockpit, there was a lot of blood,” she told Israel’s Channel 24.
Fellow passenger Mika Bauman said the feeling of the plane losing some 18,000 feet was a million times worse than a drop on a rollercoaster.
“I was just sure I was going to die,” she told CNN. “You’re just siting there and accepting your fate.”
Bauman added that after the ordeal, the passengers were able to tank the heroes who subdued the rogue co-pilot that attacked Machchhar, noting that they were easy to recognize because they were all covered in blood.
Itzhak Liber, one of passenger who helped subdue the attacker, said his clothes were covered in blood, with images of the cockpit and injured pilot highlighting the merciless nature of the attack.
“I will have to change my clothes [because] they are filled with blood,” Liber said in a social media post from inside the plane confirming that the terror suspect had been apprehended.
Zvika Manes, an Israeli banking executive, echoed the description after he and others answered the injured pilot’s desperate please for help.
“I’m covered in blood,” Manes told Calcalist. “It was crazy!”
Lital Shahar, who was riding with her four daughters, said her family was scared to death during the experience as they heard the panic aboard the plane.
Despite the terror, Shahar said she was comforted by the heroism of her fellow passengers and that two off-duty pilots happened to be aboard to help land the plane.
“There were two miracles — that Israelis were on the plane who heroically went into the cockpit… and that there were off-duty pilots onboard who could land the plane in Saudi Arabia,” Shahar told the Times of Israel.