{"id":812456,"date":"2026-07-20T15:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/812456\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T15:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:22:10","slug":"perth-couple-caught-up-in-mid-air-drama-over-middle-east-says-plane-nose-dived-passengers-were-on-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/812456\/","title":{"rendered":"Perth couple caught up in mid-air drama over Middle East says plane nose dived, passengers were on edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Australian couple at the end of their European<\/a> holiday have been caught up in a mid-air drama over the Middle East<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Perth<\/a> pair Thomas Novak and Yasmin\u00a0Pavlinovich were three hours into into their Qatar Airways flight from Athens to Doha on Thursday when their worst fears were triggered.<\/p>\n

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Perth couple\u2019s terrifying mid-air scare over Middle East<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden it\u2019s just \u2018bang\u2019 … the plane nose dives down, we take our eye mask off, everyone\u2019s in panic,\u201d Thomas told 7NEWS.<\/p>\n

The travellers said there was a person with their lifejacket on, preparing for the plane to go down.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s just on edge,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look out the window, there\u2019s two ships on fire and you\u2019ve just done three nose dives \u2014 you\u2019re just like, what has just happened?\u201d<\/p>\n

Experts believe the flames in the Persian Gulf were likely from a gas field, but the timing\u00a0did coincide with ship attacks in the nearby conflict zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s highly unlikely that the flight path would have been altered to avoid any kind of missile because that would have been a very violent manoeuvre,\u201d aviation consultant Tim Collins told 7NEWS.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat wouldn\u2019t be something a passenger aircraft would normally make.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PerthPerth couple Thomas Novak and Yasmin Pavlinovich were caught up in a mid-air drama over the Middle East. Credit: 7NEWS\"PerthPerth couple Thomas Novak and Yasmin Pavlinovich were caught up in a mid-air drama over the Middle East. Credit: 7NEWS<\/p>\n

Collins said that if passengers were asked to put their seatbelts on \u201cit probably was some kind of turbulence\u201d event.<\/p>\n

Thomas said that, in the moment, it \u201cdid feel real, like we were going to crash\u201d.<\/p>\n

Demand from Perth to the Middle East has dropped since the conflict began, with many passengers choosing to go via Asia instead.<\/p>\n

There were previously two Perth to Doha services by Qatar Airways every day, but one has been suspended until December. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Long-awaited change to solve major peeve at Australian airports<\/p>\n

2 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

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1 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Australian couple at the end of their European holiday have been caught up in a mid-air drama…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,12241,44,46,41,39,42,40,3792,45],"class_list":["post-812456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-perth","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}