‘Ten guys just jumped to help’
In early 2024 the band Hatikva 6 released a song that captured the spirit of Israel as it responded to the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack. “Everyone looks so ordinary but … We’re a nation of superheroes. In each and every one hides a soldier ready to save the world,” it says.
The Hebrew version on YouTube has 15 million views; a version with English subtitles, which I recommend you take a break and watch now, has fewer views.
Just in time for the third anniversary of the October 7 attack—and just past the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on America—came an episode whose details reminded me of the song.
As Israeli government officials and flight passengers recounted it, a Boeing 737 FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv with about 174 people aboard started rapidly losing altitude, and lights suddenly went out inside the cabin. Flight data indicate the plane plunged about 14,000 feet in about 30 seconds.
“It became drastic,” one passenger on the flight, Adam Polo, told Fox News. “After a couple of seconds, people started to shout, people that were sitting in the first couple of rows and in the business class that were close to the pilots’ room … that there was a stabbing, and that there was blood everywhere, and then they asked that everyone who can help, please join and come immediately. And then we were really really really lucky that I think like 10 guys just jumped to help. Three or four of them actually entered into the pilots’ room and succeeded, after a couple of minutes, succeeded to control the situation.”
“I ran toward the cockpit,” a passenger on the plane, Yaniv Hayun, told The Free Press. “We physically fought with the co-pilot; he was going wild. I put him in a choke hold, took control of him, and dragged him out of the cockpit. … Then I called for other Israelis to help restrain him.” They did so using headphone cords and zip ties, according to the Free Press account.
One passenger, Itzhak Liber, was pictured on video saying in Hebrew, “there was an attacker with a knife who stabbed one of the pilots. We simply jumped and removed him from the cockpit.”
The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces an election on October 27, 2026, that polls indicate is close, met with Hayun at Ben Gurion International Airport, where the passengers eventually arrived after a stop in Saudi Arabia. Netanyahu released video clips and images of his meeting with Hayun, whose shirt and socks were soaked with blood. Hayun, as his wife and two daughters looked on, explained to Netanyahu how he subdued the terrorist copilot. Hayun then recounted how he had pulled back on the yoke of the aircraft based on what he’d seen watching a television show, Air Crash Investigation, also known as Mayday.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, was quoted by the Times of Israel that the event “was a jihadist terrorist attack attempt, which was thwarted only thanks to the bravery of several Israeli passengers who broke into the cockpit, overpowered the terrorist and, with their own hands, restored control of the plane to another flight crew who was present there.”
Netanyahu also credited “Indian pilot Captain Smit Machchhar for his extraordinary bravery. 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.”
The mid-air heroics by passengers are reminiscent of those aboard the planes that were hijacked as part of the September 11 terrorist attack. Daniel Lewin, a passenger aboard a plane from Boston that was eventually flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, appears to have battled the terrorists, according to his family members and accounts by others aboard the plane who got word out before it crashed. And Todd Beamer was heard saying “let’s roll” as he led the effort that apparently caused United Flight 93 to crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, rather than the terrorist target in Washington.
President Trump called it “the most amazing story” and said the key Israeli passenger was a professional plumber. “A plumber. Never flew a plane. Strong guy,” the president said.
The battle aboard the 2026 flight from Dubai had an outcome that averted the deaths.
In one video released by Netanyahu, the prime minister, in a blue suit and tie, hugs Hayun, in a blood-splattered T-shirt and jeans. “You are a hero,” Netanyahu says in Hebrew in the video.
יניב, אתה גיבור אמיתי. אנחנו עם של אריות! pic.twitter.com/55AgmAvzIG
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) September 30, 2026
“We are a nation of lions, no?” Hayun replies. “A nation like a lion.”
Read the full article here
