Israeli heroes meet Netanyahu, reveal what hijacker asked them to do

Their account followed Netanyahu’s comments Thursday that the co-pilot’s actions indicated he intended to bring down the aircraft in a suicide terror attack.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with four Israeli passengers who helped subdue the Omani co-pilot accused of stabbing another pilot and attempting to crash a Flydubai flight on Wednesday, hearing their account that the attacker asked to be killed after they restrained him.

Netanyahu met with Yaniv Hayoun, Or Pardilov, Dr. Shota Musayev and Sigalit Musayev.

The passengers described their actions during the attack and said they initially did not know whether other members of the flight crew were involved.

“We tied the stabbing pilot with the headphone cable. He was saying ‘Kill me’ – meaning that he failed at his mission and prefers to die,” one passenger told the prime minister.

The group said they instructed the attacker to communicate with the crew in English so everyone could understand what he was saying.

“We tried to maintain control over the situation, because we couldn’t trust anyone,” one passenger said in a video released by Netanyahu’s office.

Their account followed Netanyahu’s comments Thursday that the co-pilot’s actions indicated he intended to bring down the aircraft in a suicide terror attack.

Netanyahu told Fox and Friends that the Omani pilot “underwent Islamist radical indoctrination.” Citing accounts from passengers, he said, “the attacker, he calls out to the aircrew, ‘Kill me, kill me,’” making it “clear he was suicidal.”

The suspect is being held and interrogated in Saudi Arabia. Netanyahu said he expects the man will, “I assume, very quickly” be transferred to Dubai for further questioning.

“He’s an Omani national… We’ll join the interrogation and find out what happened there exactly.”

An official told The Times of Israel that the suspect discussed killing Jews on social media and said passenger accounts indicated he asked Emirati crew members to kill him.

“This was a person who was willing to commit suicide,” says the official. “His social media accounts [say] clearly that he has been radicalized into jihadist ideology. He talks about killing Jews.”

“We can’t say for sure until the investigation’s over,” the official continues, “but it certainly seems like he was a suicide actor who was probably going to try to down that plane.”