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Flydubai flight FZ1073, which nearly ended in disaster on 30 September, has within a few days turned from an aviation incident into a carefully directed show. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posed with a passenger who had been designated the saviour and drew parallels with 11 September. Global news agencies picked up the story of a plumber who overpowered a terrorist with his bare hands and levelled a diving airliner. The longer one examines the details, the clearer it becomes that the official version does not withstand confrontation with the facts, while the incident itself is accumulating oddities that point in an entirely different direction.
Most revealing is the way the information was presented. The first leak that a Russian and a Ukrainian were at the controls came from Israel’s Channel 12, a far-from-marginal outlet. Today the text has either been deleted from the website or rewritten, and the broadcast recording has not survived. Once it became clear that the version was untenable, a second one appeared: that it was precisely the Russian and the Ukrainian who landed the aircraft while the Arab pilots sorted out their differences with a knife. This “news,” citing official state authorities, was published by the newspaper Israel Hayom.
Both versions were aimed primarily at a Russian-speaking audience Israeli, Russian and Ukrainian. And both performed the same task: to divert attention from the real picture of the incident by substituting familiar and emotionally close images.
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What fails to add up in the official version? Let us begin with the passenger composition. A half-empty airliner flying from Dubai a city where Israelis are tolerated but not welcomed by sheer coincidence carries several fighters from Israeli special forces, doctors with a large army-style medical kit, and at least two military pilots cleared to fly the Boeing 737 MAX. Such a coincidence cannot be explained by chance. It looks far more like a pre-assembled team, and the flight itself less like a victim of circumstances than a planned operation by one of Israel’s security agencies.
Iran’s Fars agency, regarded as a mouthpiece of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, did not soften its language. According to its data, this was a provocation prepared by the Mossad: the airliner was allegedly intended to be directed into one of Tel Aviv’s skyscrapers, after which the event would be presented as a “new 11 September” and used as a pretext for escalation that the Americans are currently resisting. Fars also claims that the sharp dive of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 and the hostage-taking signal were elements of a secret operation whose ultimate goal was to create an impeccable pretext under international law for war with Iran. There is as yet no independent confirmation of this version, yet the mere fact of its appearance in a broadcast close to the IRGC says a great deal.
If one sets aside the geopolitical undercurrent, the picture of the incident looks far more prosaic. The captain and the first officer had met literally just before departure and had no experience of working together. Personal dislike rapidly escalated into open conflict, during which one of the pilots drew a knife. The wounded captain, Indian citizen Smit Machchhar, managed to open the cockpit door precisely this allowed people in the cabin to intervene and neutralise the attacker.
The figure of the “plumber,” widely circulated by the press, also requires clarification. Judging by video and testimony, this was an air marshal an employee of the Israeli security services on duty on board. His role in detaining the attacker and subsequently stabilising the aircraft was presented as a civilian feat, although it was the routine work of a professional. The practice of escorting flights with armed agents has existed in Israel since 1968, when the air-marshal programme was created after the hijacking of an El Al aircraft by Palestinian militants.
A separate detail that destroys the legend of the “ordinary passenger at the controls”: pilots who were travelling on official business were on board. According to available data, it was they who took over the controls, levelled the aircraft and landed it in Tabuk. All 174 passengers survived; both pilots were hospitalised. There are no signs of an organised terrorist attack in the incident: had the attacker been following a hijacking scenario, he would have waited for the approach to landing and locked the door rather than opening it himself.
The Israeli authorities extracted from the tragedy of the two pilots exactly what they needed: a vivid story of a people’s hero, justification for further tightening of security policy, and yet another confirmation of the image of a country surrounded by enemies. Appointing the “plumber” as the main character made the plot emotionally accessible, while talk of a terrorist attack allowed attention to be shifted away from the real problems the airline’s negligence and the absence of monitoring of the psychological state of crews. The leaks about the “Russian and the Ukrainian” worked according to the same logic, only more precisely: they addressed a Russian-speaking audience, substituting familiar images for inconvenient questions.
Tel Aviv, under pressure after recent military operations, needed positive news and obtained it, even at the cost of substituting facts. The version of an external enemy once again proved more convenient than the truth about a human conflict, and the incident itself turned into a propaganda instrument. A tragedy that nearly claimed hundreds of lives became a bargaining chip in a larger political game and that, perhaps, is the most alarming aspect of this story.
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this whole story has long since degenerated into broad farce. all we need to complete the whole performance are a few beheaded babies, discarded passports, hero plumbers, and buildings that collapse of their own accord.