12 minutes of madness: How Flydubai pilot, pᴀssengers saved plane midfall

Pᴀssenger Adam Polo, who was on the plane with his wife and two young children, told CNN that for a moment, the initial fall felt “like a normal air pocket”. “But after one second, you felt that the decrease and the acceleration of the downfall is not normal.”

“The electricity, all of the multimedia system and the air conditioning in the airplane stopped working,” he said. “People that were standing in the aisle or just going to the toilet, they fell. Anyone that wasn’t sitting fell. So it was like the craziest roller coaster that you ever did but multiplied by a thousand.”

In two minutes, the plane had descended more than 17,000ft. Pᴀssengers who have spoken to the media since returning safely home have described “chaos” in the cabin with people screaming and multiple waves of turbulence.

“The plane was going sharply down at an unbelievable angle, so sharp that the rudder ripped off the back of the plane,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “The plane wasn’t designed to go at a speed anywhere near that, so it was well beyond its limits.”

‘Fighting for my life’: Captain stabbed

In the meantime, a fight had begun in the cockpit between the two pilots. The copilot had attacked the Indian captain of the plane, Smit Machchhar, by stabbing him.

On Friday, Machchhar described how he suddenly found himself on the floor of the cockpit, grievously wounded.

“I was lying on the floor injured, but I told myself to go for one last push to open the door from inside,” he told Modi in a video call.

All cockpit doors are kept locked during flights, and only the pilots are able to open them. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesperson Doron Spielman told the media that despite being bloodied and lying on the floor, Machchhar had drawn on “the last moments of his energy” to click open the release on the cockpit door.

“Others came in and also played a role. I was, of course, fighting for my own life, but at the same time, I knew I was not going to let others die,” Machchhar told Modi.

Netanyahu has since praised Machchhar as a “true hero”, saying he demonstrated “extraordinary bravery” and saved the lives of the 174 people on the plane with that one act.

“Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled pᴀssengers and crew to overpower the attacker – preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster,” he said on X.

The captain told Modi he had been flying planes for 17 years and “can tell what is happening to the plane even with my eyes closed”.

The prime minister told him “his courage, patience and quick decision-making saved the lives of so many people” and all of India was proud of him.

On Thursday, the Indian embᴀssy in the United Arab Emirates reported that Machchhar was “in good health and recovering well” in Abu Dhabi, where he was airlifted after receiving initial treatment in Saudi Arabia.

The Indian embᴀssy in Riyadh said the “brave Indian pilot” had initially been admitted to hospital in Tabuk, a city in northwestern Saudi Arabia where the plane landed.

“A full update on his health is awaited but he is reported to be in stable condition. We hope that he recovers from his injuries at the earliest,” it wrote on X.

‘Like in the movies’: Pᴀssengers storm the cockpit

As soon as the captain opened the door, according to pᴀssenger Tzvika Manes, his wife, who was taking their young daughter to the toilet at the front of the plane, heard screams and a struggle in the cockpit.

As she alerted a flight attendant, the pilot fell through the cockpit door as his copilot was stabbing him, Manes told Israel’s Channel 12. Manes said he pulled his daughter out of the toilet before heading to engage the attacker.

At that point, “some of the pᴀssengers who realised something was happening raced forward, entered the pilot’s cabin. They saw the injured pilot on the ground, and the other, … the attacking pilot, was standing over the control panel, bashing the control panel,” Spielman said.

Asaf Rajuan, one of the Israeli pᴀssengers who restrained the copilot, told Channel 12 that the incident “was just [like] in the movies. I didn’t think something like this could happen in real life.”

Rajuan said he and other pᴀssengers heard shouting from the cockpit as they felt the plane plummeting.

Pᴀssenger Yaniv Hayun, the Israeli plumber Trump referred to, later said in a TV interview how he, Manes and Rajuan forced their way into the cockpit, where they found the wounded captain lying by the door.

“When I went in, I saw the terrorist on the controls, between the two seats. There were no pilots in the seats. I grabbed the terrorist, put him in a hold and first of all pulled him outside,” he said, adding that the copilot appeared to be trying to destroy the controls on the flight deck.

Once the copilot was in the cabin, pᴀssengers, including a dentist who was tending to the captain’s injuries, spent several minutes restraining him, using corded headphones to tie him up. Some have reported that he was shouting, “Kill me!”

‘Jumped back in’: Pᴀssenger seizes controls of plane

After pulling the copilot into the cabin, Hayun rushed back into the cockpit.

“I jumped back in there, grabbed the controls, started pulling the controls,” he said. “I watch Mayday,” he added, referring to a Canadian TV series about air crashes.