Mid-air panic as pilot attacked on Israel-bound flight - The Latest

0:00Will Christou:This is The Guardian.

0:10Will Christou:The plane was plummeting about 17 ,000 feet in two minutes.

0:18Will Christou:Security officials saying that this was either an attempt to crash the plane for an unknown reason or a possible hijacking attempt. And reportedly, the passengers attempt to stop the attack on the pilot. And then we've seen pictures since of people in bloodstained shirts and videos of an injured pilot laying on the floor. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth. There are jaw-dropping reports of a brawl between pilots on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv in which a pilot was stabbed. Well, Christou, you're our Middle East correspondent. London. What do we know so far?

0:55Will Christou:Yeah, it's a crazy story and it's a hard one to follow. We woke up to reports this morning that there had been some sort of emergency landing in Saudi Arabia of a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv. And at first, the Israeli authorities said it wasn't a hijacking attempt. And then slowly we've had accounts emerge from passengers saying that they witnessed one of the pilots stabbing the other one and trying to push him out of the cockpit. Suddenly the aircraft broke, like a massive, like a massive turbulence for 20, 30 seconds. then balance, and then once again drop for 10 seconds and balance again.

1:28Will Christou:And then we saw that in the front of the aircraft there was a riot. Many people rushed over there. Apparently, one pilot stopped the other. And thankfully, members of the passengers were able to intervene and stop the attack and somehow successfully land the plane. So obviously, this would have been terrifying for those on board. What emergency signals did the plane send out to show that there was a serious situation unfolding? Yeah, it's still a little confusing what exactly happened. But what we know is that the plane was over Jordanian airspace and had to divert to Saudi Arabia, and that there are three distress signals sent out.

2:14Will Christou:The first one was a general emergency signal indicating something was wrong. Second one was one that indicated there might have been a possible hijacking. And then a third one was, again, a general emergency signal. And what we know is that, according to Saudi authorities, when the plane landed, both pilots were wounded and they were taken to the hospital. Mercifully, it's reported that there are no other injuries at the moment. But, I mean, there is horrifying footage being released by people who were on the plane. And we've also been hearing from relatives of those on board, right? Yeah, we've been hearing specifically from parents of passengers and also passengers as well, that they saw a man wielding a knife attacking one of the pilots.

2:54Will Christou:And now it's believed that that was the co-pilot. But initially what we heard is that there was a man with a knife and then a lot of blood. The Israeli run away to the guy. He took a knife and tried to kill the pilot. They take his hand and put him on the floor. There was a lot of blood around. And then we've seen pictures since of people in bloodstained shirts and videos of an injured pilot laying on the floor as passengers comfort him and tell him not to fall asleep. So it's pretty graphic. And it seems like it was a pretty violent attack. Yeah. And how on earth did the flight keep going? because in these videos you can see this kind of emergency situation and the flight is able to safely land.

3:48Do we know any information about how that happened?

3:51Will Christou:Yeah, I think that's still all coming out. There are some initial media reports that there were some pilots on board that were able to help, but we're still not sure. And reportedly during the passengers' attempt to stop the attack on the pilot, the plane was plummeting about 17 ,000 feet in two minutes before people put rest control and right the plane again.

4:15Yeah, which is just a massive distance for a plane to drop in a very, very short period of time. You know, what we're hearing from passengers is that that moment was particularly horrendous. So Will, what do we know about the investigation into this so far?

4:32Will Christou:Security officials are now investigating this as a possible attempt to attack either Israelis or Israel by diverting the plane to a third country or maybe using it to attack Israel itself. Or, you know, the possibility of a mental health crisis is also in the cards. You know, they talked about suicide by plane. But really nothing much is known. The far right minister Ben Gavir in Israel called it an attempted terrorist attack. Yeah, and that's a claim that has been reiterated by other Israeli ministers, such as the defence minister Israel Katz. We've also been hearing from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who's described this as an extremely severe security incident, and that the pilot accused of carrying out this stabbing has been arrested and is being questioned by Saudi authorities.

5:18He's thanked the passengers and crew for their bravery and has been speaking to one of the Israeli passengers on board. He told me that the plane entered a tailspin and began to dive. He told me that, against all odds, he managed to break into the cockpit along with one of the crew members, and together they neutralized the stabbing pilot while he was trying to subsage the plane's systems. Additional flight crew on board entered the cockpit and managed to stabilize the aircraft. I salute these heroes who showed exceptional resourcefulness and courage. They saved many lives. They prevented a heavy disaster.

5:59And obviously much more will emerge about motive or the reason why this happened as investigations continue. But for now, I mean, there are serious questions about how this level of injury was able to be inflicted upon someone on board a flight, given airport security, even for pilots. It raises all sorts of questions, doesn't it? It does.

6:25Will Christou:It's pretty stunning, not only, you know, airport security, but also, you know, this occurs during Israel's election period. So, you know, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned in sort of a vague warning a couple days ago that some sort of attack on Israel was coming. We don't know if this is connected to it, or if this is a chance occurrence. But it's certainly shocking. And, you know, Israel had a history of being targeted by hijacking attempts in the 60s and the 70s. But in the decades since then, we've not seen anything like this, if indeed this turns out to be an attack or a hijacking attempt.

6:58Okay. Yeah. So tell me more about what Benjamin Netanyahu had warned. He said that there was a likelihood that there would be an uptick or an attack on Israel in the run up to the October elections. Why would he issue that warning? Do you think he had information that he was basing this on? Or what would the motive be for such an alarmist message?

7:20Will Christou:So Netanyahu said a couple of days ago that there might be an attack on Israel during the election period. This was viewed quite cynically by Israeli opposition who saw it as sort of an election ploy. Netanyahu is Mr. Security and that's how he's tried to boost his domestic popularity. The IDF also said that they had no intelligence of an upcoming attack. So we don't know if anyone had any intelligence towards this. If they did, it seems to have occurred anyway, or if this is just sort of a coincidence. Okay, okay. Well, Will, thank you so much. Thank you. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Will Christou, The Guardian's Middle East correspondent.

7:58You can keep up with all our coverage of this story over at theguardian.com. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus will be back in your feeds as usual tomorrow morning. The Latest will be back tomorrow night. This episode was produced by Angus Neal. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin. The executive producer was Zoe Hitch and it was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. The Guardian.

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