New and harrowing details emerged Thursday about the final moments of the attempted hijacking on the Dubai-to-Israel flight: During their meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the flight heroes revealed what the co-pilot said after they managed to subdue him—and how they had to improvise restraints to tie him down and prevent him from attacking again.
One of the flight heroes told Netanyahu that after the struggle, they urgently needed to restrain the co-pilot: “In the end I came up with the idea to tie him with the headphone cable. And we tied him, because we had no other choice.”
According to him, only later did they manage to get more suitable restraints. “Only after that they brought us the zip ties,” he said, explaining that in those moments the only thing on his mind was preventing the attacker from going wild again.
But then those present revealed another detail from the dramatic minutes after the takeover. “He said ‘Kill me,’ ‘Kill me,’ in English,” one of the flight heroes recounted.
Netanyahu, surprised by the testimony, asked: “In English, yes?” and was told that the co-pilot doesn’t speak Hebrew and that communication with him during the incident was conducted in English.
One of those present at the meeting offered an explanation for what he said after being subdued: “That means he failed his mission and he’d rather die.”
During the meeting, Netanyahu and those present heard additional testimonies about what happened on the plane. One of the heroes of the incident said that when he reached the cockpit area he noticed a large amount of blood and the wounded pilot, and immediately began treating him and trying to stop the bleeding.
The prime minister praised their actions and said that “the entire world identifies with this and sees here courage, very great Israeli courage.” He later announced to the flight heroes that they will light a torch of civilian heroism on Israel’s Independence Day.