A plumber grabbed the attacker, a dentist treated the dying captain, passengers fought back and another flight crew brought the plane safely to the ground.
They boarded Flydubai Flight 1073 as ordinary passengers.
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A plumber traveling with his wife and daughters.
A dentist.
A banker and his wife.
Other families headed home to Israel.
Within seconds, they would be fighting to save a plane carrying more than 170 people.
The captain who unlocked the door
Captain Smit Machchhar performed the first extraordinary act.
Authorities say the 38-year-old Indian captain was stabbed by his co-pilot and left badly wounded on the cockpit floor as the aircraft plunged.
But even while fighting for his own life, Machchhar says he realized one thing: if he didn’t act, the passengers could die.
“I knew I couldn’t let the passengers die,” he later recalled.
Drawing on 17 years of flying experience and 11 years as a captain, Machchhar somehow pushed himself up and managed to unlock the cockpit door before collapsing.
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That single act gave the passengers and crew a way inside.
Machchhar later said he was reciting the Hanuman Chalisa, a Hindu prayer, throughout the ordeal and credited his faith with giving him courage.
The captain shared more about those terrifying moments during an emotional video call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi from his hospital bed. Read the story here.
What happened next was an incredible chain reaction of courage.
The plumber who ran toward the cockpit
Yaniv Hayun, 50, was traveling with his wife and two daughters when he heard a woman scream that someone had been stabbed.
Then the plane started diving.
“At that moment I ran to the cockpit,” Hayun later recalled.
He didn’t know exactly what he would find on the other side.
Inside, Captain Machchhar was badly wounded and the alleged attacker was near the controls.
Hayun went after him.
“I grabbed the assailant and put him in a chokehold, and pulled him out,” Hayun told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after returning home.
Other passengers jumped in and helped restrain the man.
But there was another terrifying problem.
The plane was still diving.
And nobody was flying it.
So Hayun went BACK into the cockpit.
With no pilot training, he grabbed the controls and pulled back, trying to level the aircraft until someone qualified could take over.
When Netanyahu asked how in the world he knew what to do, Hayun gave an answer almost too incredible for Hollywood:
“I watch Air Crash Investigation, Mr Prime Minister.”
A dentist becomes an emergency doctor
While Hayun and others fought for control of the aircraft, Dr. Shota Musaev had another mission.
Save the captain.
Musaev, a dentist, rushed to Machchhar and found him covered in blood from serious wounds to his head and hands.
“He was just praying the whole time and was in contact with me, and I was afraid we would really lose him,” Musaev recalled.
He began treating the wounded captain with whatever was available aboard the aircraft.
Musaev also helped restrain the alleged attacker, who passengers bound using headphone cords and zip ties.
All of this was happening while the passengers had no idea whether there might be another attacker aboard.
“You don’t think, you just act”
Yaniv and Shota weren’t alone.
Israeli bank executive Tzvika Manes helped hold down the attacker, while his wife, Tali, was credited with being among the first to alert passengers to the violence unfolding in the cockpit.
Passenger Asaf Rajuan also rushed in to help.
But when reporters later called him a hero, Rajuan rejected the label.
“I’m not a hero,” he said.
“It’s something you do without thinking, running to save your daughter’s life, your family’s life, your wife, and all the staff and people on the plane. You don’t think, you just act.”
That may be the most powerful description of what happened aboard Flight 1073.
They didn’t have time to plan.
They didn’t know how the story would end.
They just acted.
One final team had to bring them home
Even after the attacker was restrained and Hayun helped pull the aircraft out of its dive, the ordeal wasn’t over.
Another Flydubai flight crew traveling aboard the plane stepped in.
Passengers identified one of the pilots as a British man named James. The reserve crew took control, stabilized the aircraft and ultimately landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
Every link in the chain mattered.
The wounded captain who opened the cockpit door.
The passengers who ran toward danger.
The plumber who fought the attacker and grabbed the controls.
The dentist who worked to keep the captain alive.
The passengers who restrained the attacker.
And the pilots who finally brought everyone safely back to earth.
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Israeli President Isaac Herzog has recommended Hayun, Tzvika and Tali Manes, Musaev and Rajuan for the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism.
Maybe Rajuan is right that none of them were thinking about being heroes.
But sometimes that’s exactly what a hero is.
An ordinary person who, when everything goes terribly wrong, simply decides to act.
And because these people did, more than 170 souls made it home.
That’s the good report.
Caleb Parke is an award-winning independent journalist and host of “The Good Report” podcast. Follow him on X, Facebook, Instagram, and connect with him at calebparke.com.
