How Ordinary Israelis Foiled a Hijacking

It’s Wednesday, September 30, and for the first time in over 20 years, someone has tried to hijack a plane bound for Israel. Miraculously, the attacker, an Omani pilot, was overpowered before he could seemingly crash the aircraft.

The entire region held its breath as the morning Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv sent an emergency signal, transmitted the hijack code and appeared to veer off course over Saudi Arabia. The region then exhaled, almost with a chuckle, when early reports blamed a scuffle between the two pilots. That laughter quickly died as security assessments and passenger testimony revealed that the co-pilot had repeatedly stabbed the captain before seizing the controls and pointing the plane toward the ground, dropping more than 17,000 feet in just over a minute, until several crew members and passengers forced their way through the cockpit door and subdued him. Many were injured in the process. The plane made an emergency landing in Tabuk, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, where the passengers are now waiting for Israel to bring them home.

The assailant’s specific motive and affiliation are still unconfirmed, but Israel is treating the incident as terrorism.

One of my favorite comedies of all time is Airplane!, but there’s a reason Israel doesn’t make comedies about crises in the air. Between 1968 and 1976, Palestinian groups attempted or carried out 16 hijackings, and roughly as many attacks on other aviation targets, hitting El Al offices and passengers at the airports in Athens, Brussels, Istanbul, and Rome. An El Al jet flying the Israeli flag was an unmistakable national symbol and a target. The defining image of the era was an isolated El Al plane, Magen David (Star of David) on its tail, sitting on a foreign tarmac, its window shades drawn, surrounded by police and soldiers, while hostage negotiations dragged on for days. The aim of the terrorists was to isolate Israel, reach a global audience, and strike fear into Israelis, and it succeeded on all three counts.