The co-pilot stabbed the Captain and attempted to crash the plane, which would have likely killed all the Israeli passengers on board.
If the Captain had not unlocked the Cockpit Door before passing out from his stab, it is likely the terrorist plot would have succeeded.
Would we fly to Israel on FlyDubai? Hell, no!
I lived in the UAE before 2020, and back then, if you were even suspected of going to Israel, you would be permanently banned from the UAE. If you wanted to go to Israel, you had to meet a guide outside the country who would walk you through dodgy checkpoints into Israel, thus avoiding the stamp in the Passport, which would lead to a ban (this was before eye-scan technology came to the UAE).
I remember Israel sending a team of agents to successfully kill a Palestinian chief at a Dubai Hotel whilst I was in the UAE, and there was a slight uproar from the UAE people to the audacity of the assassination. Still, nothing happened, and all the Israelis got away.
It was well known that the UAE was “sympathetic” to multiple terrorist organisations, and that is why they never became a target of them.
That said, in 2020, the UAE decided to make “a pact” of sorts with Israel to fly there, motivated by greed, of course, and the premier airline would be Flydubai (owned by the Emiratis – UAE).
EL AL, the main Israeli airline, was also allowed to fly to and from Dubai.
So what is the big deal with Flydubai? Well, it is UAE-owned, which means that anybody could be operating the plane (and did!)—British, Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, etc. Take your pick. And given the huge tensions between Israel and most Arab Nations at the moment, there is a massive risk of a terrorist attack, which sure as hell is not going to be carried out by an Israeli!
We would fly EL AL in a heartbeat. Why? Because their policy is to have Israeli Pilots and Co-Pilots because of the tight security restrictions in Israel, and also will have infinitely better security than Flydubai.
Bottom line is if a Flydubai plane goes down full of Israelis, it is a shame, and there will be the usual BS cover-up and UAE people running around saying it isn’t their fault. Still, if an El AL plane went down because of a senior staff member crashing the plane, this would be a huge embarrassment and could not be left to happen.
I remember when I was in the UAE, there was a terrorist alert flying from Abu Dhabi to Egypt, so I took a plane on the National Jordanian Airline, which I knew was almost all Jordanian Crew, because you would be hard-pressed to find a Jordanian wanting to bring down a Jordanian airline, no matter who was on board.
Please understand that some countries have a majority of National citizens, unlike us in Britain, where a British person could be of any original nationality.
Our thoughts go out to the Indian Pilot, Captain Smit Machchhar, and his family, who bravely acted to save others. A true hero.
Photograph: Israel Foreign Ministry @IsraelMFA
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