Last week’s Flydubai story was one of a series of incredible miracles, the first being the Indian pilot’s strength and courage in opening the cockpit door despite the severity of his wounds. Thanks to that act, the other miracles were able to play out, and thank goodness they did: New intelligence reveals that the Omani co-pilot planned to crash the plane into Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, which would have created a staggering mass-casualty event.
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If you’re looking for miracles in daily life, consider the successive miracles that had to occur for the Flydubai flight to land with no serious injuries other than those Captain Smit Machchhar sustained in the original attack. Here are those miracles:
- Captain Machchhar opened the reinforced locked door. Had he not done so, the plane would have crashed, and all would have died.
- The Boeing-manufactured 737 plane withstood a sudden 16,000-foot plunge at almost supersonic speeds, something it was not built to handle.
- Several passengers, instead of panicking, reacted quickly and headed straight to the cockpit and were able to enter it.
- Having stormed the cabin, they were not deterred by the fact that the co-pilot was armed with a deadly axe and was using it to disable the plane’s controls. They pulled him away from the instrument panel and tied him up with the cords from the airline’s cheesy free headsets.
- Yaniv Hayoun, a plumber who liked watching shows about airplane crashes, knew enough to push forward the control yoke that allowed the plane to level out—which, thankfully, the co-pilot hadn’t destroyed.
- The plane, having survived the first plunge, survived being leveled and continued to be airworthy despite serious structural damage.
- There were other pilots on the plane who were safely able to land it.
That’s a whole lot of miracles for an event that took almost as little time to happen (up until the landing part) as it took me to write this or you to read it. Indeed, one Israeli who was actually on the flight noted that there were many more that did not make the headlines:
Asaf Rejuwan, one of the Israeli survivors of flight 1073 wrote on Facebook: ״I don’t usually post on social media, but today I felt something burning deep inside me that I simply had to share. Ever since the incident where the terrorist’s attempt to hijack the Flydubai flight was thwarted, there has been a lot of coverage in the media, and I’ve been asked many times what factors I believe prevented the terrible disaster that could have befallen our people had that despicable terrorist succeeded in his plans. Today, I think I received a very special and interesting answer to that question. Naturally, after the incident ended and we landed safely on the Land of Israel, I felt the need to thank many people… the passengers who cooperated, my lioness of a wife and all the mothers and fathers who protected their loved ones, the children who stayed composed, and every Israeli passenger on that plane. Yesterday, I was part of a group of passengers interviewed for an international channel. As each passenger went into detail about how they experienced the flight, we realized something very important- something you only understand when the dust settles and you get into the small details during intimate conversations among yourselves. We realized that every single passenger on that flight had a role, every passenger on the flight had a role. One passenger was responsible for communicating with Israel’s security services I discovered there was a passenger on board who provided a mobile hotspot and made sure to share it with others Another female passenger sat and recited Psalms A passenger made sure to pass along headphone cords to tie up the terrorist Passengers kept track of where we were going to land using GPS maps An Australian passenger was the only one on the plane who could make calls back to Israel from an enemy country (Saudi Arabia) And the list goes on… And, of course, the amazing Yaniv, the wonderful Tzvika and Tali, the hero Shota, the great man Or, and many other great friends who lent a hand. I had no doubt that after such a great miracle, I would be attending synagogue on Saturday morning to recite the Birkat HaGomel (the prayer of thanking the God of Israel after a lifesaving miracle) I am not a religious person. I believe in God in my own way, and I don’t usually look for signs in everything. But today, something happened that completely astonished me. Completely by chance, today in the synagogue I read from Parashat Devarim (Deuteronomy 33:26): “There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides the heavens to help you, and in His majesty rides the skies.” אֵין כָּאֵל יְשֻׁרוּן רֹכֵב שָׁמַיִם בְּעֶזְרֶךָ וּבְגַאֲוָתוֹ שְׁחָקִים I read the verse, stopped, and got goosebumps, and so did all the other worshippers who knew the story and understood why I was there with them. After everything that happened on that flight, after the fear, after the storming of the terrorist, and after realizing how thin the line between life and death really was- finding myself facing those exact words, “rides the heavens to help you,” was a moment I can hardly explain. I don’t know if it was divine providence, a coincidence, or simply a moment that took on a profoundly deep meaning for me. But today, in the synagogue, as I recited Birkat HaGomel, I felt mainly one thing: Thank you. Thank you for life. Thank you for the miracle. And thank you for the privilege to stand here and tell the story. Am Yisrael Chai 🇮🇱״
— Gal G., Adv 🇮🇱 (@ICK_GalG) October 4, 2026
I hope Machchhar and Hayoun receive the highest civilian honors Israel has to offer because both deserve them.
Naturally, the obvious suspects were bewildered. There was an “altercation” and a “fight” in the cockpit. The co-pilot’s motives were mysterious. We might never know what happened.
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Well, now we know: The co-pilot’s plan was to create a mass casualty event. What he intended to do was kill the pilot so swiftly that it wouldn’t affect the flight and no one would know about events in the cockpit. Then, he’d crash the plane into Ben Gurion Airport:
Breaking: The Omani pilot said during his interrogation that he had planned to crash the plane into Ben Gurion Airport. That is why he attacked the other pilot only while over Jordan, near Israel. He planned to make a normal landing approach and, in the final seconds, when interception would no longer be possible, crash the plane into the terminal. The plot was thwarted only thanks to the fateful decision of the injured Indian pilot to open the door at all costs.
— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) October 4, 2026
To understand the scope of this disaster, I asked ChatGPT to estimate how many people could have been at Ben Gurion if the plan had succeeded. Based on the 90,000-100,000 passengers who pass through Ben Gurion per day during busy periods, plus a guesstimate of 5,000-7,000 employees during those same periods, ChatGPT estimated that 15,000-20,000 people could have been in the path of the hijacked plane.
It would have been the largest mass-casualty event ever. Instead, it was something else. We can point to luck, coincidence, or a higher power, but whatever the cause, something amazing happened last week.
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Image created using AI.