By Breitbart News Network | Created at 2026-10-01 03:02:05 | Updated at 2026-10-01 05:12:13
4 hours ago
President Donald Trump hailed the extraordinary Flydubai rescue as “the most amazing story” Wednesday after speaking “at length” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while saying the co-pilot accused of stabbing the captain and attempting to crash the Israel-bound jet was “perhaps a terrorist.”
Trump recounted how the badly wounded captain managed to open the cockpit door before Israeli passengers overpowered the co-pilot as the Boeing 737 plunged thousands of feet, with one passenger briefly grabbing the controls before qualified pilots aboard the flight took over.
“It seems as though the co-pilot was perhaps a terrorist, or perhaps a whack-job, and he stabbed the pilot,” Trump said.
Trump said the badly wounded captain nevertheless managed to release the fortified cockpit door and call for help, allowing passengers to reach the flight deck despite the severity of his injuries.
“The pilot was in very bad shape. I guess he still is in very bad shape,” Trump said, calling his actions heroic. “He was able to fall back and get the door open and scream.”
The captain, Smit Machchhar, is an Indian national and veteran commercial pilot who remained hospitalized in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, following the attack.
Netanyahu separately hailed Machchhar as a “true hero,” saying the captain fought back despite being seriously wounded and managed to open the cockpit door before collapsing.
“Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu spokesman Doron Spielman later provided a more detailed account, saying the bloodied captain used “the last moments of his energy” to activate the cockpit-door release while lying wounded on the floor, allowing passengers to rush inside.
The passengers entered to find Machchhar wounded on the floor and the co-pilot over the control panel, which Spielman said he was attempting to destroy.
Trump then turned to Yaniv Hayun, an Israeli plumber who helped overpower the attacker and briefly grabbed the controls as the aircraft plunged.
“He ripped this guy out of the seat, threw him back, the crowd got him, the passengers got him,” Trump said. “And having never flown a plane, he took the stick, lifted it up, and leveled out the plane before it crashed.”
Trump acknowledged that he was recounting the extraordinary rescue as it had been relayed to him by Netanyahu and others.
“Now this is the story that I heard. I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s the story that I got,” he said.
Hayun, who returned to Israel Wednesday still wearing a bloodstained white shirt, said he and another passenger forced their way into the cockpit, where Machchhar had collapsed, and the attacker was positioned between the two pilot seats.
Hayun said he put the attacker in a chokehold, dragged him away from the controls and called other passengers forward to restrain him before returning to the cockpit as the aircraft remained nose-down.
“I jumped back to the control, pulled the yoke,” Hayun recalled. “I started pulling the yoke.”
One of two qualified pilots traveling as passengers then reached the cockpit and took over as the aircraft began leveling out.
Hayun attributed his instinct to pull back on the controls to watching the television series Air Disasters, a detail Trump repeatedly marveled at Wednesday.
“He said he watches it a lot, and he learned from watching that show sort of how to fly,” Trump said. “I think it’s the most amazing story.”
Trump said he had been told the co-pilot wanted to crash the aircraft, while noting that authorities were still gathering information about the attacker and his motive.
“They said he wanted to crash the plane,” Trump said.
Israeli officials have described the incident as an attempted terrorist attack. Defense Minister Israel Katz called it an “attempted jihadist terrorist attack,” while Netanyahu said the co-pilot “apparently tried to crash the plane with everyone on board.”
Flydubai has said the circumstances and motive remain under investigation and has temporarily suspended all flights to and from Israel while authorities establish the facts surrounding the attack.
Flight FZ1073 was carrying 174 passengers from Dubai to Tel Aviv when the aircraft plunged roughly 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds during the struggle. After the attacker was subdued and qualified pilots aboard took control, the jet made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
Machchhar remained hospitalized there Wednesday, with the Indian Embassy in Riyadh reporting him in stable condition while awaiting a fuller medical update. The suspected attacker remained in Saudi custody.
The passengers later returned safely to Israel aboard a replacement aircraft, where Netanyahu personally greeted Hayun and others at Ben-Gurion Airport.
The attack has also prompted Israel to tighten security for incoming flights, with Netanyahu ordering increased checks on pilots employed by foreign carriers.
“Every pilot that is going to be flying into Israel, we are going to know the pilots’ identities, know who they are, and do some type of security check,” Spielman said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar also spoke with UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed in what Israel described as a “warm” conversation, with both sides expressing determination to strengthen ties and cooperate against extremists seeking to undermine regional stability — as Israeli officials portrayed the attack as targeting not only those aboard the aircraft, but the Israel-UAE relationship forged through the Abraham Accords.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
