1 hour agoFlyDubai passenger tells harrowing tale of passengers subduing would-be hijacker copilot

An Israeli military veteran named Tal who was a passenger on the FlyDubai flight that plummeted over 16,000 feet after its copilot stabbed the pilot in an apparent attempted hijacking told Fox & Friends his story of witnessing first-hand the attempted hijacking and subsequent thwarting.

“What I saw was one of the ladies who came out of the toilet with her daughter screaming. I actually had my headphones on, so I pulled them out. Immediately, we realized the aircraft started bouncing from left to right. That’s when everything started happening, and some people ran to the front,” Tal, who chose not to reveal his last name, told Fox & Friends.

Tal explained that when he began walking towards the cockpit from his seat on the flight’s sixth row, other passengers were already wrestling with the copilot while others were trying to stabilize the injured pilot.

Tal also explained that he was seated next to two pilots who were slated to take over flight duties after the plane landed in Tel Aviv.

“I noticed the cockpit was empty. No one was in the cockpit because one pilot was lying on the floor bleeding, and everyone was fighting the other pilot, trying to handcuff him, At that moment, I ran to the two off-duty pilots and told them, ‘Guys, you need to go to the cockpit! You need to go to the cockpit!'” he recalled.

“I think it took them about four seconds to understand what was going on. At that point, one of them literally jumped over the two other pilots—one bleeding and one being fought—took control of the aircraft, and righted it,” he continued.

Tal praised his fellow Israelis’ calm under pressure, explaining how the passengers all entered “action mode.”

“It’s a lot to process. Unfortunately, us Israelis know how to process these types of situations. The passengers processed everything really fast, and each person took on a role—whether you were a kid trying to get through it, or a mother with kids. Everyone was in ‘action mode,’ trying to see how we could get out of the situation.

The Israeli veteran also expressed dismay at elements of the public’s reaction to the incident.

“I just want to say something that frustrated me: while everything was happening, I was one of the only people who could communicate externally because I had reception. I was getting messages from people saying the global media was reporting it as a fight between two pilots, while I was reporting from inside that it was a terror attack. It was really frustrating that the media’s default reaction was that it couldn’t be a terror attack, even though it clearly was,” he said.

“It feels like there is a sentiment where the global media allows it to happen—that if it’s related to Israelis or Jews, it’s treated differently than any other country. That’s how it felt to me,” he concluded.