Three days have passed since FlyDubai attack but the two uniformed crew members who stepped in to stabilize and land the lane are still not publicly identified JERUSALEM -- Who are the mystery pilots who stepped in to stabilize the FlyDubai flight as it hurtled toward disaster? As of Saturday, three days after the uniformed crew members rushed to the cockpit to steady the Israel-bound plane carrying 182 people after a sickening plummet, they still haven't been publicly identified. FlyDubai has called them only on-duty crew members traveling on the plane.
It’s not clear why the airline hasn't said more. One passenger at the front of the plane, though, described the men’s actions in an interview with The , giving one of the most detailed accounts of the yet-unsung heroes. In this case, they brought them because they should have brought the plane back from Tel Aviv to Dubai, and this is the only reason they were there.” The practice is called deadheading.
The two men responded after screaming passengers discovered what was unfolding in the cockpit. They said the copilot was attacking the captain over and over, and blood was everywhere. The captain, while badly wounded, managed to unlock the cockpit door.
After a passenger grabbed the copilot and pulled him out, and others grappled with the man to subdue him, Schlichter said that one of the traveling pilots practically hurtled the scrum to enter the cockpit and seize the controls. But whoever the first one was, he moved very quickly. Once the two entered the cockpit and closed the door, Schlichter wasn’t sure who did what inside.
It took “quite a lot of minutes,” maybe 10 or more, to stabilize the plane after a descent so extreme that part of its rudder was torn away. A mayday call was made as the men frantically sought a place to land. Meanwhile, some of the frightened and wary passengers wondered about them and whether they could be trusted.
He worried about an even worse situation — that the men might be “hijacking the plane into maybe Iran, or I don’t know where, because we’re actually not too far.” But after about 45 minutes, he said, the pilots announced that they would be landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, and everything was going to be OK. With that, Schlichter said, he decided to trust them. And it turned out to be true. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events
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