'I Watch Air Crash Investigation, Mr. Prime Minister': The Bloodied Hero Netanyahu Hugged After Saving Flydubai FZ1073
- Netanyahu's office released video of the prime minister hugging Yaniv Hayoun at Tel Aviv airport after the passenger choked the alleged attacker and pulled him away from the controls of flydubai flight FZ1073.
- Hayoun said he pulled the jet out of its dive using knowledge learned from the TV show Air Crash Investigation — and that the stabbed captain unlocked the cockpit door before collapsing.
- The stabbed pilot has been identified as Indian national Smit Machchhar, an ex-SpiceJet captain with flydubai since 2022; he has had surgery and is stable, though the airline has not officially confirmed identities.
- The co-pilot, described by Israeli officials as an Omani national at the airline under a year, remains in Saudi custody and has not been charged; his motive is unknown.
He was still covered in blood when he met the prime minister. On Wednesday, Yaniv Hayoun — the Israeli passenger who throttled the alleged hijacker of flydubai flight FZ1073 — walked into Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport and straight into Benjamin Netanyahu's arms.
"I asked to change my bloody clothes before meeting him," Hayoun said. Netanyahu would not hear of it: "This is the honor! You are the hero!" And then: "Without you it could have been another 9/11."
What happened
Netanyahu met Hayoun and other passengers shortly after they returned to Israel aboard a replacement flight. "You are amazing. You are a people like a lion!" he told them. Hayoun, a plumber, then gave the fullest account yet of the fight. Woken by the lights going out and a sudden pressure change, he reached the flight deck to find the captain stabbed and collapsed against the cockpit door — which he had unlocked before losing consciousness.
Latest verified facts
The alleged attacker had the jet's nose pointed downward. Hayoun put him in a chokehold, dragged him from the controls, and — drawing on the TV series Air Crash Investigation — pulled back the handles to level the plane. "I watch Air Crash Investigation, Mr. Prime Minister — really!" he told Netanyahu.
Three other Israeli passengers helped guard the subdued attacker — first tied up with headphones, later with zip ties — while an off-duty pilot on board joined the crew in giving first aid to the wounded captain. "We kept him alive the entire way," Hayoun said.
The stabbed captain has been identified by Indian media as Smit Machchhar, an Indian national of Gujarati origin — a former SpiceJet senior commander who joined flydubai as a direct-entry captain in June 2022, with around 9,750 flying hours. He underwent surgery and is stable, though flydubai has not officially confirmed the crew's identities.
The co-pilot — described by Israeli officials as an Omani national at the airline under a year — is in Saudi custody and has not been charged; his motive is unknown. The aircraft squawked the 7500 hijack code, and Israeli fighter jets scrambled before the jet landed safely in Saudi Arabia.
Why it matters
Netanyahu is calling it what it looked like: "This was not just an isolated event — it was a terror attack." An attacker who stabs a captain and points a 737 MAX 8 earthward is attempting mass murder on a 9/11 scale — and he was stopped by passengers, not by any security system.
That raises uncomfortable questions. The industry spent two decades hardening cockpit doors after 2001; this attack came from inside the flight deck. How did the co-pilot allegedly turn on his own aircraft? Airlines and regulators worldwide will be studying this one for years.
Impact on the USA and the world
For Israel, a national trauma averted — and a political moment, as Netanyahu's "terror incident" framing puts pressure on Riyadh to treat it as such. For India, the spotlight is personal: an Indian captain stabbed defending his aircraft is a hero across Indian media. For the United States, any near-miss of this kind triggers an instant reassessment of cockpit security doctrine.
What happens next
The critical unknown is the co-pilot. Saudi questioning will determine whether he is charged — and what drove him. Watch for flydubai's official statement (identities still unconfirmed) and the Saudi findings — and whether Netanyahu's framing leads to a formal Israeli-Saudi counterterror track, remarkable between two countries with no formal diplomatic ties.
Read our earlier coverage: 'Knife in the Cockpit': Pilots' Mid-Air Fight Sent Flydubai Jet Plunging 14,000 Feet — Then a Landing in Saudi Arabia · 'They Saved Many Lives and Averted a Terrible Disaster': Netanyahu Says Flydubai Co-Pilot Stabbed the Captain and Tried to Crash the Plane