Four Israelis Subdue Attacker, Save Flydubai Flight

In this episode

The stories Maya and Daniel cover, in order. Each one opens the full story.

1. Four Israelis Subdue Attacker, Save Flydubai Flight
2. Israel Prepared for Worst-Case Scenarios During Flydubai Incident
3. Israeli Passengers Thwart Apparent Hijacking Attempt on Flydubai Flight
4. Saudi Arabia Rejects Israeli Evacuation Offers Amid Flydubai Incident
5. Flydubai Incident Sparks Political Firestorm Ahead of Israeli Election
6. El Al, Israir Stocks Surge Following Flydubai Flight Incident

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Transcript

Maya

Four Israeli passengers stopped a man who allegedly tried to bring down their plane.

Daniel

And investigators believe that man was the co-pilot.

Maya

This is Good Morning, Israel from baba News. It's Thursday, October first. I'm Maya.

Daniel

And I'm Daniel.

Maya

Daniel, walk us through it. This was a Flydubai flight?

Daniel

Right. Flydubai is a budget airline based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The flight was going from Dubai to Tel Aviv, and partway through, something went very wrong in the cockpit.

Maya

What do we know about what happened up there?

Daniel

According to the reports, the attacker is believed to be the co-pilot. He allegedly stabbed the captain and then tried to crash the plane.

Maya

The person sitting at the controls.

Daniel

Exactly. That's what makes it so frightening. You can lock a cockpit door against someone outside it. You can't lock it against someone who's already in there.

Maya

So how did the passengers get involved?

Daniel

Four Israeli passengers stepped in. They restrained the assailant, and they helped stabilize the aircraft.

Maya

And the captain, even after being stabbed?

Daniel

He's being hailed as a hero too, along with those passengers. Between them, they got the plane down safely.

Maya

But not in Tel Aviv.

Daniel

No. It made an emergency landing in Tabuk, a city in Saudi Arabia. The passengers were later flown on to Israel.

Maya

And while all this was happening in the air, officials in Israel were watching it unfold.

Daniel

They were. According to the reports, Israeli officials prepared for several disaster scenarios, and one of them was shooting the plane down.

Maya

Wait, shooting down a passenger jet?

Daniel

As a worst-case option, yes. If a plane is heading toward Israel and someone in the cockpit is trying to crash it, the state has to plan for the possibility that it gets used as a weapon.

Maya

Which is a decision nobody ever wants to face.

Daniel

Nobody. And in the end, nobody had to. The passengers and the pilots resolved it before it got anywhere near that point.

Maya

Do we know why the co-pilot allegedly did this?

Daniel

Not yet. It's being treated as a suspected terror attack, and an investigation into his motives is underway. Until it reports, it's important not to get ahead of the facts.

Maya

Now, the landing in Saudi Arabia led to its own story.

Daniel

It did. Israel offered to send a plane to Tabuk to bring the stranded Israelis home, and Saudi Arabia turned those offers down.

Maya

Why turn down a rescue flight?

Daniel

A source quoted on it said normalization can't be forced. That's being read as a message aimed at Israel.

Maya

Normalization meaning official diplomatic ties.

Daniel

Right. Israel doesn't have formal relations with Saudi Arabia, though it does with the Emirates. An Israeli plane landing in a Saudi city would have been a big symbolic step, and Riyadh, the Saudi capital, clearly didn't want it taken on those terms.

Maya

So Israel offered help, and the Saudis wanted to keep the politics out of it.

Daniel

That's about it. And the people who mattered most, the passengers, still got home.

Maya

Of course, it's an election season, so this was never going to stay just a security story.

Daniel

No. It's turned into a political flashpoint. Allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are pointing to it as proof that his security warnings were right.

Maya

We told you yesterday about those warnings.

Daniel

Right. Netanyahu had said Israel's enemies would try to carry out attacks ahead of the vote, while the I D F reportedly said it had no focused warnings of election-related attacks.

Maya

So his camp is saying, see, he was right.

Daniel

Exactly. And opposition leaders are making a very different argument. They're drawing parallels to the failures that came before October seventh.

Maya

Which ties straight into the fight we've followed all week, over who warned whom.

Daniel

Right. One side says the threat is real and he named it. The other says threats were missed before, and asks what was missed this time. The investigation into the co-pilot is going to land right in the middle of that.

Maya

And then there's the business side.

Daniel

There is. Shares in El Al, Israel's national airline, and Israir, a smaller Israeli carrier, rose significantly after the incident.

Maya

So investors are betting people will fly with Israeli airlines.

Daniel

That's the thinking. Some passengers may now prefer local carriers, and the incident is expected to hurt Flydubai's position in the Israeli market.

Maya

Especially since Flydubai isn't flying to Israel right now.

Daniel

Right. Flydubai has suspended its Israel flights for six days. That's disrupted a lot of travel plans, especially for Israelis with connecting flights through Dubai.

Maya

Dubai being a big hub for getting to Asia and beyond.

Daniel

Exactly. And Israeli airlines are stepping in to help travelers who got stuck.

Maya

Let's move to the polls, because there's a new one, and it's a surprise.

Daniel

A Channel thirteen News poll, that's one of Israel's main television channels, shows Netanyahu's bloc at fifty-four seats.

Maya

And Benny Gantz's bloc?

Daniel

Twenty-one. Gantz is a former I D F chief of staff and a longtime rival of Netanyahu.

Maya

Fifty-four to twenty-one. That's not close.

Daniel

No, and it's a reversal from previous surveys. The poll also has the ultra-Orthodox parties United Torah Judaism at eight seats and Shas at seven.

Maya

Still short of a majority, though.

Daniel

Right. The Knesset has a hundred and twenty seats, and you need sixty-one to govern. So coalition math will still matter a lot.

Maya

And it's one poll, taken in a week when security dominated everything.

Daniel

Exactly. One poll is a snapshot, not a result. The next few surveys will show whether this is a real shift or a moment.

Maya

Now to the Palestinian side, and the election coalition we told you about yesterday.

Daniel

Right. The terrorist organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, joining up with Mohammed Dahlan's faction, ahead of Palestinian legislative elections.

Maya

What's new?

Daniel

The picture now is of a possible single unified list, aimed squarely at challenging Fatah, the party that dominates the Palestinian Authority.

Maya

And Islamic Jihad running at all is the surprise.

Daniel

It is. Islamic Jihad has historically boycotted these elections. Taking part would be a significant shift.

Maya

Why would that worry Israel?

Daniel

Because it's a terrorist group that's rejected politics, suddenly reaching for the legitimacy of a ballot. And as we noted yesterday, Hamas won an election in two thousand six, then seized Gaza by force.

Maya

And whether this list even gets to run?

Daniel

Still unclear. The Palestinian elections body hadn't approved any lists when we last reported on it.

Maya

So, the thing to watch. Flydubai's six-day suspension is running, so watch how Israeli airlines handle the travelers stranded on connecting flights.

Daniel

And watch for any first word from the investigation into the co-pilot's motives. That will shape the security debate and the campaign.

Maya

Follow Good Morning, Israel so tomorrow's episode is waiting for you.

Daniel

See you tomorrow morning.