Trump says Israeli plumber who never flew stabilized flydubai jet

Trump said Netanyahu told him an Israeli plumber who had never flown a plane straightened out the flydubai jet before it crashed, adding: “I don’t know if it’s true.”

US President Donald Trump said he spoke at length with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the flydubai incident on the Dubai–Tel Aviv flight, adding that Netanyahu told him an Israeli passenger, a plumber, heard screams from the cockpit and intervened.

A flydubai Boeing 737-8 MAX (file)

“An Israeli plumber who had never flown a plane before, who very rarely flies, saw what was happening,” Trump said. “Even though he’d never flown a plane, he grabbed the stick, pulled it up and straightened the plane out before it crashed,” he added, saying the passenger had learned from watching the TV series Air Disasters. “That’s the story I heard. I don’t know if it’s true,” Trump said.

Tabuk Airport (file)

The co-pilot of flight FZ1073 had stabbed the Indian captain, Smit Machchhar, who despite serious wounds managed to open the cockpit door so passengers and crew could subdue the attacker as the plane dropped from 33,000 to 17,000 feet in about a minute. The aircraft, carrying 174 people, made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, and flydubai suspended flights to and from Israel pending an investigation.