Flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, Netanyahu: ‘A global catastrophe has been averted; perhaps the attacker used an axe’
The motive of the co-pilot who attacked the Indian captain in the cockpit remains unclear
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that the passengers and the injured captain of the Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, in Israel, averted a catastrophe that could have taken on ‘global’ proportions. “They prevented a catastrophe that could have had global consequences,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox News. The Prime Minister described the actions of the passengers, who helped to subdue the hijacker and stabilise the aircraft, as “an act of great courage that prevented a repeat of 9/11”.
However, the motive behind the attack remains unknown; it is not clear whether the pilot who struck the other was a ‘terrorist or a madman’, as US President Donald Trump put it. Nor is the nationality of the co-pilot who carried out the attack yet known with certainty; there has been no official statement as yet.
The airline has stated that the causes and reasons behind the incident are unknown ‘and remain the subject of a formal investigation’, whilst the authorities in the United Arab Emirates have referred to it as a ‘safety incident’. A key element of the investigation will focus on the so-called black boxes, which record cockpit conversations and flight data. As for the flight path, it is known that the aircraft went into a sudden, steep nosedive before being stabilised. Unconfirmed images of the aircraft on the runway in Saudi Arabia showed damage to the vertical stabiliser, suggesting that the aircraft had been subjected to extreme stresses.
In a video released by the Prime Minister’s Office, the passenger who was the first to rush towards the cockpit told Netanyahu that he had grabbed the controls and pulled them towards him, after wresting the attacker away from the pilot and dragging him out of the cockpit.
Netanyahu stated that the attacker may have struck the captain with an axe. Airlines are generally required to keep emergency axes in the cockpit for use in an emergency, in order to break a window to escape or open a panel to access a fire. Netanyahu’s theory attempts to answer one of the questions raised about yesterday’s incident, in which a plane made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after, according to reports, the co-pilot stabbed the captain and attempted to cause the plane to crash. The question is how someone on board the aeroplane – in particular a pilot – managed to bring a knife onto the aircraft. It is unclear what size the knife used in the attack was, nor whether it was in fact a knife.
