Show Notes
On September 30, Flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv was hijacked mid-air. A terrorist stabbed the pilot, the plane dropped 15,000 feet in under a minute, and for a few seconds nobody was flying it. Nachi Gordon sits down with Daniel Schlichter, who was sitting in the second row with his wife, two meters from the cockpit, and watched three Israeli passengers take the terrorist down while a dentist on board treated the pilot. Daniel handed them the headphones they used to tie him up.
Daniel walks through every minute: the empty cockpit, the off-duty pilots who took over, the flight attendant who told them to let the terrorist go, the emergency landing in Saudi Arabia with part of the tail missing, and the first direct flight from Saudi Arabia to Israel. He also opens up about why a man who never considered himself religious now calls it a divine miracle, and what he believes all 174 people on that plane are still here to do.
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro: "Nobody's Flying This Plane" 1:55 Daniel Schlichter on Boarding Flight FZ1073 Home From Japan 3:36 "Somebody Is Stabbing the Pilot": The Fight in the Cockpit 8:45 Losing 15,000 Feet in Under a Minute 11:31 The Miracles That Kept 174 People Alive and What It Did to Daniel's Faith 16:06 An Empty Cockpit and the Off-Duty Pilots Who Took Over 18:59 Not Trusting the Crew and Landing in Saudi Arabia 22:52 Am Yisrael Chai and the First Direct Flight From Saudi Arabia to Israel 25:05 "Kill Me, Kill Me": Why It Was Terror, Not a Fight Between Pilots 29:10 "I'm Not a Hero": Coming Home and Searching for Why 32:57 The Indian Pilot Who Opened the Door
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