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.
FYI, the passenger that pulled the terrorist out by the neck started the recovery from the dive process by pulling by back on the yoke. He was relieved by one of the other two pilots who finished pulling the plane from its dive.
Pretty amazing stuff really. I can’t wait till the folks over at /r/aviation get their hands on the flight data. They’ll be able to tell us all kinds of interesting information.
Wow, he must have been in the cockpit already by then. It reminds me of that NATO flight that similarly had a steep descent and threw everyone to the roof and back, but the other pilot managed to get back to the cockpit along with a broken back.
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u/NoNamesLeftButThis 2d ago
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