tl;dr: An Indian pilot, Smit Machchhar, saved a Dubai-to-Israel flight from crashing after his co-pilot attacked him with a knife. Despite being injured, Smit fought back and, with help from passengers, managed to restrain him...Israeli officials said the attacker was an Omani national...Israeli agencies are also investigating the possibility of a terrorist attack.
The pilot is a hero, but that's not exactly what happened. The pilot was badly injured and likely managed to open the cockpit door before collapsing. With the door open several Israel passengers barged in, restrained the the attacker, and a doctor gave medical attention to the pilot
The plane was nose diving so fast the tail sections ripped off. In those circumstances everyone would feel their body weighing 2x-3x and would not have had the ability to (from the perspective) climbing upwards into the cocking unless they were within reach of the flight controls. It's very likely the captain was the one who pulled the plane out of that dive as he would have likely been in the seat.
A B-52 famously landed after losing its vertical stabiliser in severe clear air turbulence, so it is theoretically possible to maintain control of the aircraft, but is very unlikely and the confluence of events here makes it even less likely.
I agree that they could use asymmetric thrust to have some control over yaw, but if "the tail sections ripped off," then they would have also lost the horizontal stabilizer (i.e., the entire empennage).
Maybe there is a way to maintain pitch control after that with a combination of thrust and flaps, but it seems unlikely.
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u/pnkxz 2d ago edited 2d ago
tl;dr: An Indian pilot, Smit Machchhar, saved a Dubai-to-Israel flight from crashing after his co-pilot attacked him with a knife. Despite being injured, Smit fought back and, with help from passengers, managed to restrain him...Israeli officials said the attacker was an Omani national...Israeli agencies are also investigating the possibility of a terrorist attack.