Even more fortunate were passengers of United Airlines Flight #232 in 1989. An engine on that plane disintegrated explosively, blowing out all the hydraulics. A UA pilot flying as a passenger had studied a previous crash with similar hydraulic failure and loss of controls and had even practiced similar situations in a flight simulator.. He assisted in getting the plane to the Sioux City airport where it crash-landed, but a a majority of the passengers survived.
The passengers are on board another FlyDubai flight and on their way back to Israel. There was some discussion of whether Israel would need to send a plane or even a military flight to get them but my guess is that Dubai is eager to do whatever they can to fix things ASAP.
They’re saying that Israel offered but the Saudis refused.
I hope Israel issues a genuinely warm thank you to the Saudis.
Perhaps this incident can open a dialog between the two countries.
Why send two planes? One plane with passengers got hijacked.
Plausible guesses:
- In case one breaks down.
- To provide more space to the understandably upset passengers. A half-full airplane is much more comfortable / pleasant than a full airplane.
- Perhaps they have brought a bunch of airline staff to do grief- / PTSD-related counseling. Major US airlines have those staffs and do similar for particularly harrowing experiences.
Yes, by all reports the Saudis have been gracious hosts. Not at all surprising though.
Passangers have landed safe and sound in Tel Aviv.
My God, everyone could easily have been killed! Sounds like they came very close to it.
Now that we’re getting reliable reports that it was a pilot stabbing another pilot, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this was an example of poor Crew Resource Management.
Too soon?
My guess was that the simply didn’t have another plane with enough seats available on short notice, but they were able to find two smaller planes, i.e. they didn’t have another 737-8 available, so they sent two 737-700s or something like that. Although I don’t have any knowledge about FlyDubai’s fleet, so that is just a guess.
I know you’re making a joke, but as they avoided a crash, it sounds like CRM worked in case. The crew corrected a major problem caused by a human.
Could such a situation occur on an El Al flight? Tons of security.
It’s never funny to explain a joke, but I find this darkly amusing because the whole point of CRM is to avoid conflict between crew members and make sure opinions are heard. A first officer pulling a knife on the captain would be… on the far end of the spectrum for desired conflict resolution techniques.
I don’t have an English link, but they interviewed a dentist who was one of the four people who tackled the terrorist pilot and who then provided first aid that may have saved the life of the pilot who was stabbed.
There is confirmation it was terrorism? I expect the guy is still quite busy being interrogated.
You mean, as compared to a really nasty way to commit suicide? Or a bizarre psychotic incident?
I doubt it. But, “stabbed the guy next to you and tried to shove him out of the cabin” doesn’t sound like it could be an innocent error.
This was an inside job.
Much of what people refer to when they say “tons of security” is defenses aimed at the external threat.
Does El Al have good internal security too? Good bet. But that’s a very different nature of threat and of precaution.
Separately …
The answer to any open-ended question like “Could [whatever] happen?” is nearly always “Yes, it could.” when the [whatever] is about human systems and human actors. Less so when the question is about physics or chemistry or similar.
Said another way, there is no such thing as “completely safe”, nor “completely secure”. All anyone can ever do is drive the odds lower than they’d otherwise be. El Al may indeed be able to get the odds down to (made up example number) one in ten million. But that’s not zero. Neither is 1 in 10 billion.
?
It’s a reference to the movie Airplane, where passangers and crew (including both of the the pilots) who ate the fish got horribly sick and needed an emergency landing.
Oh … have not seen that movie in years and years. It does sound vaguely familiar though.