<p class="wp-block-paragraph">President Donald Trump stated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed him that an Israeli plumber played a role in stabilizing a hijacked Flydubai flight, noting that the individual had no experience operating a commercial aircraft.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Trump shared details of his conversation with Netanyahu during a press briefing in the Oval Office on Wednesday. He mentioned that the discussion followed an incident where the copilot of a Flydubai flight allegedly attempted to crash the plane.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The individual Trump referred to was among several passengers who intervened to regain control of the aircraft after the rogue copilot reportedly stabbed the pilot.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“A plumber, an Israeli plumber, never flew a plane, was rarely in planes, very rarely flew,” Trump said. “An Israeli plumber saw what was happening. Strong, you know, when you lift pipe all day, you’re strong. And he saw what was going on. He heard the screaming. … The plane was going sharply down at an unbelievable angle, so sharp that the rudder ripped off the back of the plane. Plane wasn’t designed to go at a speed anywhere near that, and so it was well beyond its limits. … He ripped this guy out of the seat, threw him back. The crowd got him. The passengers got him. Grabbed him. And having never flown a plane, he took the stick, lifted it up, and leveled out the plane before it crashed.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">According to Netanyahu’s account, the passengers, many of whom were Israeli, were saved when a passenger and crew member managed to break into the cockpit after the stabbed pilot opened the door, stopping the pilot as he attempted to damage the plane’s systems. After subduing the pilot, another crew member entered the cockpit and stabilized the plane.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s the story that I got from Bibi,” Trump said, referring to Netanyahu.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The prime minister did not identify the passenger who stabilized the plane as a plumber, but Trump stated he received the information during a private phone call. The pilot who unlocked the cockpit door of the hijacked Flydubai flight after being stabbed was identified by officials as Indian national Smit Machchhar.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Netanyahu indicated that the plane was ultimately diverted and landed in Saudi Arabia, where the pilot who attempted the hijacking is now being interrogated by Saudi authorities.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The prime minister did not provide a motive for the pilot’s actions, but Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz characterized the incident as a “jihadist terrorist attack attempt.” Some reports have suggested the pilot was an Omani national, but officials have yet to release further details.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Trump remarked that the situation seemed as if the pilot was a “terrorist or, perhaps, a whack job.”</p>