A dentist who helped restrain an alleged attacker on a Flydubai flight has described how the man repeatedly begged passengers to kill him after stabbing the captain in the cockpit.
Flight FZ1073, travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv, descended more than 14,000ft in under 30 seconds while the confrontation unfolded at 34,000ft over Saudi Arabia.
Passengers eventually pulled the co-pilot from the cockpit, tied his hands and feet and helped care for Captain Smit Machchhar, who had suffered serious wounds. The aircraft was landed safely at Tabuk airport by reserve crew members who were on board.
Shota Musaev, a 47-year-old Georgian Jewish dentist travelling with his wife and children, said he joined a group of passengers who rushed towards the cockpit after hearing a woman shout: “Knife! Knife!”
“Everything was going smoothly when, suddenly, we felt the aircraft drop sharply. We thought it was just turbulence,” Mr Musaev said. “I took out my camera and started filming. Exactly half a minute later, we heard noises from the front: shouting, and a woman screaming, ‘Knife! Knife!’”
He said the group of four men dragged the alleged attacker out of the cockpit and held him down.
“We tied the terrorist up, binding his hands and feet,” Mr Musaev said. “Nothing apart from begging us: ‘Kill me’.”
At the same time, Mr Musaev treated the badly wounded captain, who he said was losing a large amount of blood.
“The pilot was losing a lot of blood,” he said. “His arm was badly slashed, as was his neck, and he had a very deep wound at the back of his head. Everything in the cockpit was covered in blood, but he was conscious.”
With no first-aid supplies available, passengers used pieces of cloth to try to stem the bleeding. Mr Musaev said Captain Machchhar pleaded with him: “Save me. I don’t want to die here.”
The dentist credited his wife with helping passengers during the emergency, saying she had shown “tremendous strength” despite usually becoming frightened easily.
He said the moment that would stay with him most was when he told her he was going to help at the front of the aircraft. “I effectively said goodbye to her,” he said.
Investigation into Flydubai flight attack
Captain Machchhar has received praise from Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his actions during the incident.
Mr Musaev said the captain’s ability to open the cockpit door was crucial. “Had the cockpit remained locked, we probably would not have been able to do anything. It would have been another September 11, the same as what happened in America,” he said.
Mr Netanyahu has claimed that the co-pilot underwent Islamist radical indoctrination and was suicidal. Israeli security officials said their initial assessment was that the alleged attacker, identified as an Omani national, had probably acted alone.
Those claims have not been established. The UAE has launched an investigation into the circumstances and motive, including whether the incident was connected to terrorist activity, prior planning or outside direction.
Israel’s envoy to the UAE, Yossi Shelley, said it was too early to draw conclusions and that no motive had been determined. Omani authorities have not commented.
The alleged attacker was being investigated in Saudi Arabia, Mr Netanyahu said, adding that he believed the man would be taken to the UAE.
