{"id":331712,"date":"2026-10-04T07:28:45","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T07:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=331712"},"modified":"2026-10-04T07:59:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T07:59:35","slug":"crew-of-hijacked-flydubai-plane-clashed-with-heroic-israeli-passengers-demanded-tied-up-terror-pilot-be-freed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=331712","title":{"rendered":"Crew of hijacked flydubai plane clashed with heroic Israeli passengers, demanded tied-up terror pilot be freed"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Spector \u2013 New York Post Oct 3, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The crew of the hijacked flydubai plane shockingly clashed with heroic Israeli passengers who subdued the ax-wielding co-pilot after he attacked the pilot \u2014 demanding he be freed, two men who helped secure the terror suspect told The Post in exclusive interviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were asking us to untie the terrorist \u2014 we had no idea why,\u201d said banking executive Tzvika Manes, one of the three civilians who took down the would-be hijacker.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were saying to free the terrorist \u2014 we got instantly suspicious of them,\u201d said real estate professional Daniel Schlichter, who was sitting in the second row, close to the cockpit.<\/p>\n

Manes, 40, was traveling with his wife and three daughters aged 11, 7, and 6, after a family vacation in Japan, when the co-pilot, identified by<\/a> The Wall Street Journal<\/a> as an Omani national Hamam al-Hammami, began hacking at the Indian pilot, Capt. Smit Machchhar<\/a>, with a crash ax.<\/p>\n

The seriously injured Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door. Manes, along with plumber Yaniv Hayoun and Asaf Rajuan, rushed to confront the attacker and overpowered him.<\/p>\n

Hayoun, a plumber, then managed to stabilize the nosediving plane<\/a> using techniques he learned from the TV show \u201cAir Disasters.\u201d<\/p>\n

But after the three Israelis subdued the pilot and restrained him face-down with his hands tied behind his back \u2014 first with zip ties, then using headphone wires that Schlicter gathered from passengers.<\/p>\n

As he was subdued, Hayoun heard the terrorist cry, \u201cKill me, kill me\u201d \u2014 apparently because he failed in his Jihadist mission, Manes said.<\/p>\n

Yet some crew members began demanding that he be freed.<\/p>\n

An argument ensued and the Israeli trio shot back that under no circumstances would the suspected terrorist be released.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018You are not God, you are not going to kill him,’\u201d Manes recalled. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to kill him, we just wanted him not to kill us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The flydubai hijacking story keeps changing. First we were told that the hijacker stabbed the pilot with a \u201cknife\u201d. Now we are being told that the hijacker used an \u201caxe\u201d. These changes suggest that the narrative is being made up as we go-along<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-331712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feature-posts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=331712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331715,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331712\/revisions\/331715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=331712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=331712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=331712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}