Israel-Bound Flydubai Flight Diverted to Saudi Arabia After Attempted Hijacking
Israeli Hero Recounts Battle to Stop Flydubai Hijacking: ‘I Grabbed Him, Choked Him’
Netanyahu, who had earlier praised the passengers for preventing a “major disaster,” was waiting at Ben-Gurion when Hayun and the other passengers returned, embracing the bloodstained passenger after he stepped off the replacement flight.
“It’s simply unbelievable what you did, you know? Simply unbelievable,” Netanyahu told him. “You didn’t just save everyone on the plane. You don’t know what could have happened to it. We don’t know what would have happened.”
Netanyahu later told Hayun: “You are a hero.”
An Israeli passenger who helped overpower the co-pilot accused of trying to crash a Tel Aviv-bound Flydubai jet recounted how he put the attacker in a chokehold before grabbing the controls of the plunging aircraft himself — an extraordinary intervention Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later hailed as heroic.
