On Wednesday morning, somewhere between Dubai and Tel Aviv, FlyDubai Flight FZ1073 began to fall out of the sky. In the cockpit, the Omani co-pilot had stabbed the Indian captain and, according to passengers and Israeli officials, was trying to bring the aircraft down. On board were 174 passengers, 27 of them children. Most were Israelis on their way home.
What happened next has no precedent. Ordinary passengers forced their way into the cockpit. Yaniv Hayon was the first one in: he got the attacker in a chokehold, dragged him off the instruments, and pulled back on the yoke while the plane was still losing altitude. Others pinned the man to the floor and tied him hand and foot. Two pilots who happened to be flying as passengers took the controls, and a dentist on board stopped the captain's bleeding. The plane leveled off and landed safely in Saudi Arabia. Defense Minister Israel Katz called it a jihadist terror attempt, foiled by the courage of Israeli passengers.
Aviation history knows pilots who turned their own aircraft into weapons. In 2015, a Germanwings co-pilot locked his captain out of the cockpit and flew the plane into the French Alps, killing everyone aboard. On September 11, 2001, the passengers of United 93 fought their way toward the cockpit and gave their lives, but could not save the plane. I know of no case in which passengers broke into a cockpit mid-dive, overpowered the man trying to kill them, and brought everyone home alive. That is what happened on Wednesday. It was a miracle in the sky, and it was an Israeli miracle.
This says a great deal about the Israeli spirit: about Israeli determination, about the will to live, about belonging to a faith that commands life. Elie Wiesel, who carried the Hasidic world of his childhood with him all his life, understood Judaism as a religion of life. We are commanded in so many words: "Choose life." And as one of the heroes of Flight FZ1073 put it afterward: "We thought about life. We thought about the will to live."
Israelis love life. Perhaps that is our paradox. Life in this country can be hard, at times exhausting, and many of us choose, for a while, the good life, or the easier one, somewhere else. But we always come home. Because the choosing is no smaller than life itself: choosing to live in this land, in a place where life is still held sacred, where a human face and life carries weight.
The people on FZ1073 were doing exactly that, coming home from Dubai, from Vietnam, from holidays and business trips. Hours after staring death in the face, they were told the only way back was another FlyDubai plane. Some balked. In the end they boarded, and they came down the stairs at Ben Gurion singing.
And the world? It portrays us as a people who place no value on human life.
The Israeli spirit has proven once again what a remarkable people we are. A light unto the nations.
Only one thing is a pity: the terrorist is still alive.
