How A Woman's Screams Alerted flydubai Passengers Of Cockpit Incident

Tali Manes was waiting for her five-year-old daughter Nina outside the bathroom of the flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv when she heard bangs and shouts coming from behind the closed door to the flight deck.

Manes, 46, asked a backup pilot seated nearby to go investigate the sounds. Pulling open the cockpit door, which had been unlocked from the inside, they came upon a horrifying scene.

Manes screamed after seeing the carnage, as per the New York Times. Her shouts propelled the other passengers into action, stopping the mid-air hijack of the plane.

Timeline Of Events

The three-hour journey from Dubai to Tel Aviv started off normally. The Manes family was resting in the first two rows.

Tali Manes slept through the breakfast served on the plane. Just after 9 am Dubai time, she stood outside the toilet waiting for her daughter. She heard a sound from inside the flight deck, like "something knocking on the door."

After she convinced a backup pilot to check what was happening, they opened the door to a bloodbath.

Calling the scene "an absolute horror," she recalled how the co-pilot kept stabbing the pilot, Captain Smit Machchhar, repeatedly with a knife.

Machchhar, who had fallen to the ground after the attack, had somehow managed to open the door, alerting the passengers to what was happening.

Manes' screams reached Yaniv Hayoun, a plumber, and Shota Musaev, a dentist. Asaf Rajuan, a financial planner, and Manes' husband Tzvika also came to see what was happening.

As they were making their way to the cockpit, the plane lurched and went into a steep dive. They still proceeded to the cockpit and managed to grab the co-pilot in a chokehold, pulling him backward.

"We jumped on him," Tzvika Manes recalled.

The first video of the incident, recorded by a passenger, was time-stamped 9:23 am Dubai time, 52 minutes before the plane was set to arrive in Tel Aviv.

One passenger used wired headsets to tie the attacker's wrists and ankles. Musaev attached an oxygen mask to Machchhar's face and tried to stop the bleeding.

Hayoun and the backup pilot remained inside the flight deck. Hayoun operated the controls of the plane for a few seconds before the backup pilot started flying the aircraft.

Another pilot persuaded the passengers guarding the cockpit door to let him pass and helped steer the almost rudderless aircraft to a safe landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, at around 9:45 am.