the wounded terrorist<\/a> an oxygen mask.<\/p>\n\u201cWe wanted him to live so he could be investigated,\u201d Schlichter said. <\/p>\n
A power play ensued with the crewmembers insisting that they were in charge of the plane and needed to remain alone in the area directly in front of the cockpit. <\/p>\n
The Israelis, fearing the crew could be involved in the pilot\u2019s plot, ordered the stewards to leave the cockpit area and to take seats in the middle of the plane.<\/p>\n
Daniel Schlichter said that he was fully prepared to die. AP Photo\/Mahmoud Illean<\/p>\n
\u201cWe told them, \u201cNow the policy is we\u2019re in charge and you do what we say,\u2019 \u201d Manes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t know what to think, we were in a suspicious mode for every steward.\u201d<\/p>\n
A group of passengers, Schlichter among them, escorted the crew members to seats in the fifth or sixth row, away from the cockpit. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe shouted at them and told them to sit down,\u201d said Schlichter, who has two children and two granddaughters.<\/p>\n
The trio then enlisted a \u201cbig guy\u201d to guard the cockpit and prevent anyone from entering, Manes said.<\/p>\n
Flydubai passenger Yaniv Hayun steadied the plane with techniques he learned from Air Disasters. @aviationbrk\/X<\/p>\n
Reserve pilots seated on the back of the plane had at that point already entered the cockpit and taken over the control of the aircraft.<\/p>\n
After the crew was seated, they began to \u201cunderstand that this was a special case,\u201d Schlichter said, and they started tending to the traumatized passengers, providing them with blankets and water.<\/p>\n
The crew has not been accused of conspiring with the bloodthirsty co-pilot.<\/p>\n
When asked by The Post about the crew\u2019s behavior, flydubai said it could not comment on a matter under investigation. \u201cWe remain fully committed to supporting the ongoing investigation and are in close coordination with the relevant government authorities and regulators,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI stayed with the terrorist until we landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. After that I hugged my daughters and told them they were going to be OK, and that they are heroes,\u201d Manes said.<\/p>\n
The heroic trio said the crew of the plane tried to get them to free the terrorist. via REUTERS<\/p>\n
Once the plane landed, the adrenaline began to wear off and passengers started processing what they had just survived.<\/p>\n
Some had panic attacks while others broke down crying, Manes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t want to fly back to Israel on another flydubai flight. Many wouldn\u2019t step foot on the plane until they were personally told by the Mossad that the pilots had been cleared,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The self-described \u201cregular finance guy\u201d never dreamed he would one day be the center of a movie-like life-or-death midair battle.<\/p>\n
The plane nosedived 17,000 feet. East2West<\/p>\n
His only thought was saving his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I heard my daughters crying \u2018Father I don\u2019t want to die\u2019 \u2014 that was the trigger for me to run and fight, I wasn\u2019t thinking of anything, it was just fight or flight,\u201d Manes said.<\/p>\n
The pilot fought the three men viciously.<\/p>\n
\u201cPunches were flying, we were kicking him, we didn\u2019t know if he still had his knife, we couldn\u2019t see it,\u201d Manes said. \u201cNone of us were fighters or heroes, we were just normal guys who wanted to save our families.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manes said he is a regular guy who just wanted to save his family. Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was sounds you only hear in a movie,\u201d Schlichter said. <\/p>\n
Manes, the CEO of Barak Capital Underwriting, Israel\u2019s largest investment bank, said he has bruises all over his body.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe G-Force was like something I never felt like in my life, it felt like everything was soaking, it was a crazy feeling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Schlichter said that he was fully prepared to die as the plane nosedived 17,000 feet in moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the longest minute I\u2019ll ever have in my life, I remember everything, I remember clearly thinking about 9\/11, then I thought about my children, my family, how awful it would be for them to hear what happened,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Daniel Schlichter poses with his family arriving at Ben Gurion airport. Courtesy of Daniel Schlichter<\/p>\n
Both men said they were overwhelmed by the number of things that had to go right for everyone aboard to survive.<\/p>\n
\u201cStatistically this kind of miracle can not be happening, the chance that each one of us, especially would be on the same second where they had to be, I can\u2019t even fathom how unlikely it is,\u201d Schlichter said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that definitely we had divine protection,\u201d Manes said. \u201cSomeone up there is watching over us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The crew of the hijacked flydubai plane shockingly clashed with heroic Israeli passengers who subdued the ax-wielding co-pilot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15617,128172,60,9,11,10,58],"class_list":["post-363752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-flights","tag-hijacking","tag-israel","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}