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Israeli passengers stormed the cockpit, subdued the attacker and stopped a crash

Trump Hails Israeli Plumber Who Helped Stop a Flydubai Cockpit Attack and Save the Plane

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanSeptember 30, 2026 · 5 min read
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President Trump says an Israeli plumber who had never flown a plane helped save a flydubai jet from crashing after its co-pilot allegedly stabbed the captain in the cockpit on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on the night of Sept. 30, 2026, Trump said he had talked with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the incident and retold the story with obvious admiration, while cautioning that he could not vouch for every detail.

Israeli officials have called the incident an attempted terrorist attack on a plane carrying mostly Israeli passengers. What is not in dispute is the outcome: the passengers fought back, and the plane did not go down.

What happened on Flight FZ1073

Flydubai Flight FZ1073 left Dubai for Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning with 174 people aboard, most of them Israelis. Over Saudi Arabia, according to Israeli officials, the co-pilot attacked the captain inside the cockpit. Reuters reported that flight tracking data from Flightradar24 showed the plane cruising at 34,000 feet before it dropped more than 14,000 feet in about 30 seconds. A reserve flydubai crew then took control and landed the aircraft at Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, a flydubai spokesperson confirmed. The airline said the reasons for the incident were unknown and warned against “premature speculation.”

Doron Spielman, a spokesman for Netanyahu’s office, told Reuters that the wounded captain used “the last moments of his energy” to release the cockpit door, and that passengers who entered found the co-pilot bashing the control panel before one of them subdued him.

Netanyahu said he had spoken with one of the Israeli passengers. “He told me that the aircraft went into a spin and began to plunge,” the prime minister said, adding that the co-pilot “apparently tried to crash the plane with everyone on board.” His tribute to the passengers was unequivocal: “I salute these heroes, who displayed extraordinary resourcefulness and courage. They saved many lives. They prevented a major disaster.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz called it an “attempted jihadist terrorist attack” and said it “was thwarted solely thanks to the heroism of several Israeli passengers” who entered the cockpit and subdued the attacker. Based on preliminary information, Katz said, the attacker “had a single objective: to crash the plane.”

Trump’s version: “An Israeli plumber saw what was happening”

Trump told reporters, “I did speak to Bibi Netanyahu at length about this event,” and called it “an incredible story.” He said “the co-pilot was perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack-job, and he stabbed the pilot,” and that the badly injured captain managed to open the reinforced cockpit door. “In a way, he was a hero,” Trump said.

Then came the passenger. “An Israeli plumber saw what was happening,” Trump said. “And you know, when you lift pipe all day, you’re strong.” In his telling, “The plane was going sharply down at an unbelievable angle,” and the plumber “ripped this guy out of the seat, threw him back.” Then, “having never flown a plane, he took the stick, lifted it up, and leveled out the plane before it crashed.”

Asked how the man knew what to do, Trump said he had been told the passenger watched the television series “Air Disasters” and learned from it. Trump was careful to flag what he was passing along: “Now this is the story that I heard. I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s the story that I got from Bibi.”

Israeli outlets identified the passenger Trump appeared to be describing as Yaniv Hayun, an Israeli plumber who was seated near the front of the plane, heard the screaming and rushed toward the cockpit. Reports say he helped pull the co-pilot out and took the control column, though accounts of exactly who did what in those seconds were still coming together on Wednesday. Reuters reported that the reserve crew ultimately landed the aircraft.

“We tied him up with headphone cables”

Other passengers’ accounts make clear this was a group effort. Tzvika Manes, who was flying with his family, told Israeli media that his wife heard shouting and strange noises from the cockpit. When the captain opened the door, “the three of us jumped in. We neutralized him, the attacker,” Manes said. “We lost our angle. He was really trying to direct the aircraft toward the ground.”

The passengers restrained the co-pilot with cables from the in-flight entertainment headphones. “We eventually tied him up and neutralized him. It took quite a lot of physical force,” Manes said. A doctor and a nurse on board, he said, stabilized the captain, “who had been stabbed all over his body.”

Another passenger, Almog Italie, told Reuters that at first it felt like “massive turbulence” until he realized a fight had broken out in the cockpit, and that “crew members and passengers from the front of the airplane took over.”

Why it matters

The motive is still under investigation, and the details will keep being refined. But the outline is already clear, and it is one that Israelis know well. A plane full of Jewish families was put at the mercy of a man Israel’s defense minister says wanted to fly it into the ground. Nobody on board waited for someone else to save them. A plumber, a father traveling with his daughters, a doctor, a nurse and the crew did it themselves, with their hands and a few headphone cables.

The passengers were flown home to Tel Aviv on a replacement flydubai flight. Within hours of the attack, the President of the United States was in the Oval Office telling the story of an Israeli tradesman who refused to let the plane go down.

Whoever planned to crash that plane picked the wrong passengers: the Israelis on board fought back, and they won.

Sources

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