Bank Leumi Executive Gives First-hand Testimony Of Dramatic Flydubai Cockpit Attack, ‘We Tied Him Up With Headphone Cables’

(VINnews) – Tzvika Manes, CEO of Bank Leumi’s Barak Leumi underwriting company, has given a detailed firsthand account of the chaos aboard the flydubai flight that diverted to Saudi Arabia after an apparent attack inside the cockpit.

In his first interview about the incident with the Israeli business newspaper Calcalist, Manes said he and two other passengers rushed into the cockpit after his wife heard screaming and unusual noises coming from inside.

Manes said his wife had accompanied their daughter to a restroom near the cockpit when she heard the commotion. She alerted a pilot who was outside the cockpit and told him that something was happening inside.

When the cockpit door was opened, Manes said, the passengers saw the confrontation and immediately intervened.

He said three passengers entered the cockpit and helped overpower the alleged attacker.

The incident unfolded as the aircraft was descending rapidly, adding to the panic inside the cabin.

According to Manes, the attacker had stabbed the captain and was attempting to take control of the aircraft. Manes said the plane began to plunge and passengers were thrown around as the struggle continued.

The passengers eventually managed to pull the alleged attacker away from the cockpit and restrain him.

Manes said the struggle required significant physical force because the man was strong and appeared to be driven by adrenaline.

The passengers then improvised a way to keep him restrained.

According to Manes, they used cables from the headphones provided for the aircraft’s entertainment system to tie him up and prevent him from returning to the cockpit.

The dramatic intervention came as the wounded pilot needed immediate medical attention.

Manes said a doctor aboard the aircraft treated the injured captain and helped stabilize him. Another pilot then took control of the aircraft.

Manes described the experience as extraordinarily traumatic.

“I’m covered in blood. It was crazy,” he said in his account to Calcalist.

The Calcalist report identified the wounded pilot as being from India, the alleged attacker as being from Oman and the reserve pilot who assisted as being from Fiji.

Manes said his wife was the first member of his family to realize that something was seriously wrong.

She had been near the cockpit with their daughter when she heard shouting and other unusual sounds. She alerted the pilot outside the cockpit, prompting the door to be opened and allowing the passengers to intervene.

According to Manes, he and the two other passengers then rushed inside and helped neutralize the alleged attacker while a doctor worked on the wounded captain.

Another passenger separately described the incident in a video posted on social media, saying a man armed with a knife had stabbed one of the pilots and that several passengers rushed into the cockpit and pulled him out.

The passenger said the attacker had been subdued and that the remaining crew members were inside the cockpit.

The aircraft eventually landed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, after the emergency.

The episode raised immediate fears that the flight had been the target of an attempted hijacking, with passengers describing an apparent effort to take control of the aircraft.

The accounts also provide a firsthand explanation of how passengers became directly involved in the emergency rather than remaining in the cabin.

Manes’ account indicates that the intervention began after his wife heard the disturbance and alerted a crew member. Once the cockpit door was opened, the passengers entered, helped overpower the alleged attacker and assisted in restraining him.

The sequence left Manes covered in blood and deeply shaken.

For the passengers aboard the flight, what began as an unexplained disturbance behind the cockpit door quickly became a fight over control of the aircraft — with a wounded pilot, a rapidly descending plane and passengers using whatever they could find, including headphone cables, to restrain the alleged attacker until the flight crew could regain control.