FlyDubai's recovery from extreme deep dive during attack 'extraordinary': Aviation expert
The jet dove more than 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds, flight data showed.
The frightening situation aboard FlyDubai Flight 1073 after a pilot allegedly attacked another inside the cockpit on Wednesday and attempted to crash the plane has shocked the aviation world.
But what was more extraordinary, according to a veteran aviation expert, was quick thinking efforts by a civilian passenger to bring the plane back from the deep dive and back to a stable, higher altitude without any major harm to the people inside.
A plumber on board the plane told reporters he leveled it despite having no flight experience and using information he learned from a TV show.
"This airplane is going 600 miles an hour, pointed at the ground, and a passenger on board is able to pull back on the yoke, and pull the nose up out of the dive, and not rip anything more than the rudder off the airplane," ABC News contributor and retired Col. Steve Ganyard said.
Flight data from Flightaware showed that around 8:21 a.m. Israel time, altitude fluctuations in the plane began and the aircraft dove more than 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds.
Ganyard said at that speed, the plane is going faster than what it was designed for and parts of the plane begin to rip off. Images of Flight 1073 showed parts of the rudder ripped off.
The other risk factor in a situation like this, according to Ganyard, is coming back from a that fast dive and while also fighting gravity.
"That force of gravity, like you feel in a roller coaster, if you go up about four Gs, you are likely to damage that aircraft if not break the wings off," he said.
Officials and eyewitnesses said that during this time, the wounded pilot, Capt. Smit Machchhar, was able to open the cockpit door and passengers ran in to fight off the unidentified suspect.
Yaniv Hayun, an Israeli plumber, said he was able to pull the suspect out of the cockpit with a chokehold and take over the controls.
"I pulled up the yoke (steering control of the plane), I straightened the plane out a bit and then the pilot ... I saw two unmanned yokes with no pilots and I've watched this (TV) program, 'Flight Investigation,' and I knew I had to pull," Hayun said in a video after the incident.
A third pilot soon took control of the plane from Hayun and flew the jet to Saudi Arabia for an emergency landing.
Ganyard said that the fact that Hayun pulled off the move in those conditions without any other damage to the plane was "remarkable."
"You have a passenger who'd done nothing more than watch television shows, who knew how to recover the airplane and pull just hard enough to recover the airplane, but not so hard that it would do damage or destroy the airplane," he said.
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