What are you capable of when doing nothing could get you killed? On September 30, the people aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 had to find out at 34,000 feet, with no warning and nowhere to go.
What Happened Aboard Flight FZ1073
The flight left Dubai for Tel Aviv carrying mostly Israeli passengers. About two hours in, the Omani co-pilot attacked Captain Smit Machchhar inside the cockpit and stabbed him, leaving him seriously wounded. The Boeing 737 dropped from its cruising altitude of 34,000 feet to roughly 17,000 feet in less than two minutes. It was an attempted jihadist terror attack. Defense Minister Israel Katz said the terrorist’s intention was to crash the plane with all its passengers aboard, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot had undergone Islamist radical indoctrination.
Anyone who remembers September 11 recognizes the method immediately. A man with access to the cockpit tried to turn a civilian passenger jet into a weapon, and this time the target was a plane full of Israelis, many of them children, flying home.
I spent the day following the Israeli reporting and talking with people close to the investigation. Investigators are still working out how the attacker was radicalized, whether anyone helped him, and how long he prepared. Those answers will explain how a security failure of this size happened and whether the danger reached beyond one man. What happened in that cockpit is already clear: a terrorist attacked the captain of an Israel-bound aircraft and tried to bring it down.
The Passengers Who Stopped the Attack
The passengers knew almost none of this in the moment. What they experienced was the aircraft suddenly falling, people and belongings thrown around the cabin, and screaming from the front of the plane that told them something catastrophic was happening near the cockpit. Tali Manes was the first to raise the alarm.
Captain Machchhar was badly wounded, and he used the strength he had left to open the cockpit door so help could get in. President Isaac Herzog later thanked him for the determination and actions that made it possible to subdue the attacker. Yaniv Hayun, Tzvika Manes and Asaf Rajuan went through that door and overpowered the co-pilot, and Hayun steadied the aircraft’s controls. Dr. Shota Musayev, a dentist on the flight, treated the captain’s wounds and kept him stable until the plane was on the ground. Herzog has recommended all four men for Israel’s Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism.
Two off-duty Flydubai pilots were also on board. Once the attacker was subdued, they took over the aircraft and landed it safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Every passenger walked off that plane, and Captain Machchhar is in stable condition in a Tabuk hospital.
What Training Gives You When the Plan Falls Apart
I teach self-defense for a living, and this is the part of the story I keep coming back to. Students often ask me which technique they should use if something happens to them. They picture a specific attack and want the right answer before it starts. Training prepares you for the common problems, and real violence rarely shows up in the exact form you practiced. Nobody boarded FZ1073 expecting to fight a terrorist in the cockpit of a commercial jet.
The men who went forward had no idea whether there was a second attacker, how badly the captain was hurt, or whether anyone could fly the plane once the co-pilot was stopped. They had enough information to act on anyway. The airplane was falling, and waiting could get everyone killed.
That’s where training proves its worth beyond any memorized technique. Good training gives you options when the situation stops following the plan. It teaches you to function while you’re frightened, to read the problem in front of you, to keep your decision making under stress working when the information is incomplete, and to use whatever resources are within reach.
Judgment Decides When to Act
Judgment has always been central to how I teach self-defense. Sometimes the right decision is to leave. If you can avoid the danger, you should, and if your children are beside you, protecting them may be your entire job. Locking a door, calling the police or staying out of it is often the safest outcome available.
Flight FZ1073 offered none of those options. The passengers were thousands of feet above the ground with a terrorist in the cockpit and an aircraft losing altitude fast. No police officer could reach them, and nobody on the ground could solve the problem. The only people who could change the outcome were already on the plane.
When you don’t have a choice but to do something heroic, you find out what you’re capable of. Most people never learn that answer until a situation demands it. Fear and confusion stay with you, and your body can still slip into a freeze response while your mind tries to catch up. You still have to decide, because doing nothing is also a choice.
Radical Islamist Terrorism and the Threat to Civilian Aviation
There’s a broader lesson here that the West should have absorbed long ago. Radical Islamist terrorism is real, and it has targeted Israelis, Americans and Europeans for decades. Naming the ideology behind it is part of understanding the threat. Euphemisms do nothing to protect us from people who have already decided that murdering civilians serves a religious or political purpose.
Israel has lived with this threat for generations. Israelis know what happens when warnings get dismissed as rhetoric, when violent ideology gets explained away, and when people wait for a threat to become undeniable before they respond. America learned its own devastating version of that lesson on September 11, 2001.
From Flight 93 to Flight FZ1073
As a self-defense instructor, I’ve always returned to one part of that day, United Flight 93. Passengers on that flight made calls to the ground and learned that hijacked aircraft had already hit the World Trade Center. From that moment they understood their own situation differently, because their airplane had become a weapon. They had very little time, no guarantee they’d reach the cockpit, and no way of knowing whether anyone could regain control. They understood what would likely happen if nobody tried, and they moved. Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania and everyone aboard was killed. The hijackers never reached their target.
Twenty-five years later, passengers on another civilian aircraft faced the same principle when someone inside the cockpit tried to use their airplane to kill them. One passenger said that as the plane plunged, it felt like September 11 was happening again. The people aboard FZ1073 couldn’t wait for investigators to establish a motive or for anyone to tell them the appropriate response. They had enough information to make the next decision, and they made it.
What Would You Be Capable Of on Flight FZ1073?
Here’s what I want my students to take from this flight. Preparedness means building enough skill, awareness and judgment that you can still function when something happens far outside anything you expected. You may never be asked to do something extraordinary, and if that day comes, it will arrive without notice. The people aboard Flight FZ1073 found out what they were capable of while their airplane was falling, and because they acted, it landed.
So picture yourself in that cabin when the floor tilts and the screaming starts up front. What would you actually do in the first ten seconds, and what have you done in your training so far to make sure that answer is one you could live with?
Do something amazing,
Tsahi Shemesh
Founder & CEO
Krav Maga Experts
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Flight FZ1073 FAQ
What happened on Flydubai Flight FZ1073?
On September 30, 2026, the Omani co-pilot of the Dubai to Tel Aviv flight stabbed Captain Smit Machchhar in the cockpit, and the aircraft dropped roughly 17,000 feet in under two minutes. Israeli passengers entered the cockpit and overpowered the attacker, and two off-duty pilots on board landed the plane safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
Who stopped the attack on Flight FZ1073?
After the wounded captain opened the cockpit door, Yaniv Hayun, Tzvika Manes and Asaf Rajuan overpowered the co-pilot, and Dr. Shota Musayev treated the captain’s wounds. President Isaac Herzog recommended all four men for Israel’s Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism.
How is Flight FZ1073 connected to United Flight 93?
In both cases, passengers realized that someone was trying to use their aircraft as a weapon and chose to fight back. Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001, and the people aboard FZ1073 stopped the attacker and landed safely.
What should you do in an attack when you can’t escape?
When escape, avoidance and outside help aren’t available, acting decisively with whatever resources you have is often the only way to change the outcome. Self-defense training builds the awareness, judgment and ability to function under stress that make that decision possible.
