Pilot Incident and Emergency Response

There was such pressure that it pulled me down.

And there was someone else at the door in a white shirt, I assume

it was the pilot,

because there were two pilots inside and, by chance,

two pilots were sitting in the cabin.

I don't know what their pilots were doing there.

He and I pushed the door. The pilot who had been stabbed was very close

to the door, so it was hard for us to open it, but I think, in my opinion,

my conclusion—

Do you think he opened it?

He managed to open it.

How did he open it? He had to get up, right?

Before he collapsed.

Before he collapsed, he managed to.

He did.

That's tremendous resourcefulness.

When I went in, I saw the assailant

on the controls between the two seats. There were no, there were no pilots

in the seats. One was down, one was on the controls, and another person came in

with me.

I grabbed the… the assailant and put him in a chokehold

and pulled him out first.

What was he doing on those controls? What did he want?

He tried to destroy the controls in order

t-to-to—

That's what—

to disable the plane.

That's what you saw.

Yes.

Okay.

We got him out. It took seconds. The plane's nose was down like this.

I called the Israelis who were with us on the plane.

I called them, they came, and two more guys jumped on him. I told them that…

We pinned him down, I jumped back into the cockpit, and pulled the

controls,

I started pulling on the controls, and then, uh—

You pulled the controls?

Yes.

You knew to pull—back?

Back.

You knew?

I'm a flight instructor in the Air Force, incidentally.

And the plane began to level out a little more, then the pilot

told me he was taking control from there.