‘I grabbed the attacker’: Passenger describes how he helped subdue co-pilot suspected of trying to crash plane

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One of the passengers who helped subdue the assailant was Zvika Mans, CEO of Bank Leumi’s underwriting company, Barak Leumi, an investment-banking operation.

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“It was an incredibly traumatic event,” Mans told financial outlet Calcalist.

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“My wife was standing near the cockpit because my daughter was in the bathroom. Suddenly, she heard shouting coming from the cockpit. She shouted to a replacement pilot from Fiji who was sitting there: ‘Get in quickly, see what’s happening,’” he continued.

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“He called for help, and two others and I entered the cockpit and subdued the attacker. I’m covered in blood. It was insane,” the CEO recounted.

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He noted that the reserve pilot who landed the airplane was from Fiji, the stabbed pilot was from India, and the attacker was from Oman, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.

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Miryam Shira Ohayon, who was also on board, described the aircraft as being “pretty much out of control” as the fight ensued.

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“The co-pilot tried to murder the pilot and basically carry out a suicide attack on the plane,” she told reporters by speaker phone held up by her mother, who was waiting at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.

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“It was really on the way to crashing, and it was simply the resourcefulness of many people who took control of the co-pilot and neutralized him,” she said.

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Ohayon noted “there was also a doctor who gave first aid, and people who treated both of them. Other than the pilot, there were no injuries, but the bigger fear was really a crash, which is exactly what he was trying to do.”

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Video of the aftermath circulating on social media shows blood smeared on the plane’s interior walls and several passengers as people tried to comfort a wounded man lying near the cockpit. Both the pilot and co-pilot were taken to hospital.

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Netanyahu in a video statement credited passengers with preventing a disaster.

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Initial assessments “indicate a foiled terror attack intended to crash the aircraft with all passengers on board,” according to a statement from Israel’s Embassy in Canada.

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“While a catastrophic tragedy was averted, this severe incident must be understood and treated as if the attack succeeded. It serves as an urgent reminder of the ongoing threats faced by innocent civilians across the globe, who remain deliberate targets simply for being Israeli.”

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The embassy called the event an attack on the Abraham Accords, a set of agreements brokered under U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020 and widely heralded as a foreign policy success.

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They govern the normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and countries that have historically been hostile to it.

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“This was not only an attempt on innocent lives, but a direct attempt by extremist forces to sabotage the vision of peace, stability, and regional normalization fostered by the historic Abraham Accords,” said the embassy’s statement.

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According to JNS, video from aboard the aircraft showed passengers singing “Am Yisrael Chai” (“The people of Israel live”) moments after the plane landed safely in Saudi Arabia.

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