The facts about what happened aboard Flydubai flight 1073, from Dubai, UAE to Tel Aviv, Israel on Sept. 30 are not in dispute. The plane, carrying more than 170 passengers, left the ground at 3:05 a.m. local time (11:05 p.m. EDT) to begin a planned three-hour and 35-minute journey, climbing to a cruising altitude of 34,000 ft., according to FlightRadar24, a live air traffic site.
At 5:21 a.m., the co-pilot, an unnamed Omani national, attacked the pilot, an Indian national named Smit Machchhar, with what is being variously described as an axe or a knife. The plane went into a steep dive, plummeting more than 14,000 ft. in 30 seconds, slinging screaming passengers from their seats. Bleeding profusely from cuts to his hands and head, Machchhar managed to send out three alerts to the ground: a so-called 7700 alarm, indicating a “general emergency;” then a 7500, indicating “unlawful interference;” then another 7700.
More importantly, he was able to unlatch and open the locked cockpit door, tumbling into the galley area at the front of the plane, while still wrestling with his co-pilot. Two passengers and one flight crew member subdued the attacker and bound his hands with the cables from passenger headphones. In a case of good fortune, two reserve pilots were aboard the plane, there to relieve the prime crew when they landed in Tel Aviv.
The pair raced to the cockpit, took the controls, and landed the plane safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Both of the prime pilots were taken to a local hospital, where Machchhar is being treated for his wounds, and the attacker was taken into custody, where he faced interrogation by Saudi law enforcement officers before being handed over to the UAE. In an interview with Fox News, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was too soon to know if the co-pilot were acting in coordination with Iran, with which Israel is currently at war, in an act of organized terrorism, “but he obviously hated Israelis because he was going to kill about 170 of them on the plane, killing himself too.” U.S.
President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested the co-pilot may be linked to Iran, "based on what [he's] hearing," but did not provide any details. Machchhar, meantime, is being hailed a hero on the international stage. The attacker had been with the airline for eight months—coming aboard before the war in Iran began.
Was he nonetheless collaborating with Iran, or was he a self-radicalized lone wolf? What kind of screening do commercial pilots worldwide go through to ensure mental stability and to rule out terrorist or criminal links? How did a weapon make it aboard the plane in the first place?
Extract — continue reading at the source.
