Passengers recall harrowing moments during FlyDubai flight: 'I was just sure I was going to die'

Passengers who were on board an Israel-bound flight Wednesday are recalling the harrowing experience and moments when passengers subdued a knife-carrying pilot, who stabbed the other pilot before he was subdued.

The FlyDubai flight was carrying more than 170 passengers and crew members at the time of the incident and the jet eventually landed safely in Saudi Arabia. But data shows the aircraft plunged from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet in about a minute.

Flydubai passenger Yaniv Hayoun is considered the hero of the flight after he put the attacker in a chokehold and dragged him out of the cockpit before returning and grabbing the plane’s controls. 

Hayoun said he saw the attacker on the panel between the two seats, appearing to try to disable the plane, while the other pilot was on the floor. 

“There were no pilots in the seats: one was on the floor, one was on the [panel],” Hayoun said, according to CNN. “I called out to a bunch of Israelis on board, and two other guys came over. We pinned him down. I jumped back, grabbed the controls, and started pulling back the handles. I imagine that if we had entered Israeli airspace, it wouldn’t have ended well.”

Another passenger, identified as Mika Bauman, described the scene to CNN and compared the feeling of the plane losing altitude to that of a drop on a roller coaster.

“We just felt the plane drop completely and start spinning a little, and everyone was screaming, there were children crying,” she told the outlet. “I was just sure I was going to die ... You’re just sitting there and accepting your fate."

Passenger Miriam Ohayon told an Israeli news station that she began reciting a Jewish prayer when the plane was crashing and was worried about her mother because she had already lost her brother, according to the New York Times.

“We heard screams on the plane, and when they opened the cockpit, there was a lot of blood,” she said. “Within a few minutes, our plane completely lost control, and we felt that this was it — we were about to crash."

Other passengers also told news outlets that they feared for their lives during the incident, including 17-year-old Nika Margoninsky, who told the Associated Press that she will not use FlyDubai again.

“I was in the back, so I didn’t see much, but I felt I was going down,” Margoninsky told reporters.

Passenger Lital Shacha told Reuters that it was a "miracle" everyone survived the attack and the plane landed safely.

"I just can say that it was a miracle," Shacha said. "It was awful, ​crazy, and we thank God that we survived it, we didn't think we will make it but thank God we are in Israel. We are back home. And ⁠we are happy to see everyone here."

FlyDubai said in a statement that the underlying reasons for the event remained unknown and has warned against "premature speculation."

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.