Who?
Stabbed Indian Pilot Foils Crash Plot By Crazed Omani Co-Pilot As Jet Plunged 18,000 Feet
The hijacker (and co-pilot) on board FZ1073 stabbed Cpt Smit Machchhar, an Indian national during the flight, but the Captain heroically managed to open the cockpit door before collapsing.
Both the pilot and co-pilot were injured in the incident on the flight which was traveling to Tel Aviv but forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia
Following situation assessments and passenger testimonies, Israel is treating the incident as a full-fledged terrorist attack. It appears that the co-pilot repeatedly stabbed the captain. Once the attack began, several crew members and passengers managed to break through the cockpit door and subdue the attacker.
Video shows the stabbed pilot on the floor … crew and passengers restrained the attacker.
So who landed the plane?
Just found out. A dead-head crew was onboard. Not in original story.
Before I chime in, please keep in mind the 48 Hour Rule, where everything said about a story inside 48 hours is likely inaccurate, and as always, my 60% Rule.
In the old days, an aircraft’s position would be known to ATC by a periodic transmission from it’s transponder. ATC would send up a signal asking “Where are you?”, and the transponder would reply “Here I am.”. Today, aircraft use ADS-B….Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast. You can dive into the details of that if you’d like, but the difference between the old ways and today is that ADS-B is more precise (aircraft have multiple GPS receivers today) which allows more planes in a given airspace. The TL:DR is that once a second, the aircraft tells the world where it is and what it is doing.
I mention that because I ran across this video on YouTube which shows the ADS progression of the hijacked flight. What you’re seeing here is a second-by-second progression of the flight’s progress. And I’ll tell you: A dive that steep is a hell-of-a dive. I’ve never done anything like that in a transport category aircraft (although we did do unusual attitude recoveries perhaps this steep in the simulator). It is a miracle that in a moment when that aircraft was diving like that, with a life-or-death fight going on in the cockpit, that a passenger was able to bust through the door*, and begin recovering the aircraft.
Secondly, I ran across this tweet, and the following comments, which furthers my belief that this was a miracle. That aircraft was stretched far beyond it’s limits. The vertical stabilizer was ripped of the plane. At this point, how close they came to ripping the entire tail section off the plane is just a guess, but it is in the realm of possibility. The airframe itself is likely toast….a complete hull loss.
As a reminder, after 9/11, after lots and lots of delays, tail-dragging, and outright opposition from almost every part of aviation, Congress approved a law which allows Federal Flight Deck Officers (FFDO) on US carriers. These are armed pilots who are federally sworn deputies of the Department of Homeland Security. Today, they carry the Glock 19.
*Busting through the door. This is a double-edged sword. Post 9/11, one of the things that the US carriers did (Dunno if others worldwide did the same thing) was to strengthen the cockpit door. We didn’t want passengers to be able to bust through, and it had to be bullet-resistant too. However, there are good reasons for allowing an easy exit from the cockpit too. Obviously, here, we now know that the door on this 737 was opened somehow by the Captain, but there were other events in the distant past which demonstrate that the door isn’t impenetrable.
Azlib,
My daughter, the young pilot and mechanical engineering student, also said that the plane’s airframe was likely headed for the scrap yard. Makes me smile to know you thought the same.
Since we all now know that if a plane gets taken over, it is going to be flow into the ground by suicide jockeys, then any group of people actually trying to take over a plane are going to get challenged. There aren’t many men with any measureable amount of testosterone that are going to just sit in their seat until they plow into the ground. There is going to be extreme violence as people know they will be fighting for their lives. Nobody is going to wait for the purple haired lesbian to start the fight. Men would be getting up simultaneously to get in on that action.
I travel on airlines quite frequently and yes, it appears most cabin doors to the cockpit have been beefed up. With enough time and effort the door could be defeated, but again, there will not be much time before passengers will intervene.
Now for the non-pilot males reading here: TELL THE TRUTH!!! There isn’t a real man alive that has flown on an airliner and not imagined that under some scenario, that if required, they would take over the controls and land the plane. If some dude successfully did that, someone would make a movie about it. Late night talk shows would want to book you. Women of all types would swoon at your presence. You wouldn’t able to buy a drink at a bar for the rest of your life.
az, I always enjoy and appreciate it when you share your knowledge about aviation and the aviation industry, Thank you.
It is my pleasure. We each have an expertise* in something, and sharing what you might be seeing with someone who might not have detailed knowledge of a subject is what makes the internet what it is. I recently had to repaint a very small part of my garage door….actually the trim around the door. Nobody but me will notice it, but I did a crap job of it, and I’m sure that a professional house painter would have done it far quicker, and better than I managed.
* Being an expert in a topic depends on what room you’re in. When friends, neighbors, or someone on the internet asks a question about aviation and the aviation industry, I can probably give a reasonable answer. But put me in a room of General Aviation pilots, or airplane mechanics or NTSB investigators, and I’m just some yahoo who doesn’t really know what he’s talking about.
Azlib is LEGEND on his past C130 story.
I might have missed it the first time around. Speaking for myself, seems like we might be due for another legendary story around here, what with Ghost being AWOL and all.
I don’t know if or how long you might have been a reader of the predecessor of this place, Gerard’s American Digest, but Snakepit is kindly referring to a comment-turned-post that I made years ago at American Digest.
I was sincerely flattered that Gerard thought enough of my scribblings to post it to his blog, and remain so today that others retain it in their memories. However, a memory of my C130 story is all that I have. Unlike some of Gerard’s fans, I didn’t download American Digest when it was available to do so. I’ve pecked around at the Wayback Machine to see if it exist there, but they’ve got 3075 snapshots of AD…..maybe it’s there, but maybe not too.
The short version of my story is that back in the day, I was a C-130 pilot stationed in the Philippines. I had a trip out to Yap Island, where through a series of errors, I was left with an aircraft with a dead battery. To get the plane out of there, we used what was then a new invention…the Leatherman….to get our battery connection down to 2 cables, and then jump-started the aircraft’s Gas Turbine Compressor (an older version of an Auxiliary Power Unit, and needed for engine start) from a Navy Seabee dump truck. The creativity of this goes completely to my copilot, who later followed me to my former airline and I imagine is now retired too. But while what we did worked, it was in no way an approved procedure. If asked about it, I deny everything. It wasn’t me; I wasn’t even there; and you can’t prove anything.
Well now that you’ve brushed some of the cobwebs out of the way, I do vaguely recall the story and also vaguely recall having been entertained by it.
It is a pity that much of the old magic seems to have faded into the mists of time, How wonderful of DT to have captured the spirit of it and to have preserved at least some of the memories.
Too bad Mr Peabody’s WABAC machine was only a fantasy.