The Israelis who didn’t wait to be told what to do

There will be investigations into what happened aboard Flydubai Flight 1073.

There should be.

How did a co-pilot who allegedly intended to bring down an Israel-bound passenger plane get into that cockpit? What was known about him? Were warning signs missed? Were the proper security procedures followed? And why was an Omani national, from a country that does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, assigned to an Israel-bound flight in the first place?

There are questions about Saudi Arabia, too, including its refusal to permit Israeli military aircraft to land to retrieve the passengers after the crippled plane made its emergency landing in Tabuk.

Those are serious questions, and they deserve serious answers.

But something else about this extraordinary story has stayed with me.

It was very Israeli.

I don’t mean that Israelis were apparently the intended victims. I mean what happened when ordinary people suddenly found themselves facing the possibility that they and everyone around them might die.

They acted.

The details are almost imapossible to comprehend from the safety of the ground. The co-pilot attacked Captain Smit Machchhar in the cockpit. The aircraft plunged thousands of feet. Passengers were thrown about the cabin. A father heard his daughters screaming that they did not want to die.

And then, somehow, the badly wounded captain managed to get the cockpit door open.

What happened next tells us something.

Tzvika Manes, Yaniv Hayun, and Asaf Rajuan went toward the cockpit and the attacker, not away from them. Hayun helped steady the aircraft’s controls. The men eventually subdued the co-pilot, reportedly using corded headphones to help restrain him. Dr. Shota Musayev treated the seriously wounded captain.

President Isaac Herzog has recommended the four Israelis for Israel’s Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism.

They certainly deserve the recognition.

But perhaps the most revealing comment came from Manes himself. Asked about their reaction, he explained it simply: “Because we’re Israelis, so we responded quickly.”

There is an entire sociology course contained in that sentence.

Having lived in Israel for several years now, I think I understand what he meant. Israelis are not always the easiest people in the world to live with.

We can be impatient. We can be loud. We are famously reluctant to stand quietly in line. An Israeli who knows nothing about automobiles can nevertheless explain what is wrong with your car. And should you make the mistake of mentioning a medical problem in public, you may quickly discover that half the country has either attended medical school or has a cousin who did.  And I won’t even mention the parenting advice you get when a child is carrying on in a playground.

Everybody has an opinion. Everybody knows somebody. Everybody wants to get involved. It can drive you crazy — until the moment you need somebody to get involved. Then that same national personality looks very different.

Someone collapses on a Jerusalem street and strangers are suddenly helping. A car is stuck and people appear. A siren sounds and Israelis look around before running for shelter to see whether there is an elderly person, a child, or someone else who needs assistance. And when catastrophe strikes, people do not always wait for instructions.

We saw it on October 7 in circumstances infinitely more terrible. Israelis heard what was happening in communities in the south and headed toward the danger. Reservists reported for duty before they were called. Civilians drove into areas under attack to rescue strangers. Ordinary people found themselves doing extraordinary things because there was nobody else there to do them.

Flydubai Flight 1073 was nothing like October 7, and comparisons should not be pushed too far. But the instinct is recognizable.

Do something. Help somebody. Figure it out.

There is even something wonderfully Israeli about Hayun’s explanation of how he had some idea what to do with the controls of a plunging aircraft. He reportedly watches “Air Crash Investigation,” the television program about aviation disasters.

So there you have it. An airplane is diving toward the ground, the pilot has been gravely wounded, an attacker is in the cockpit, and somewhere in the cabin is an Israeli who thinks: “I’ve seen something about this on television.” And then he gets up and tries to help.

Only in Israel.

None of this should obscure the extraordinary courage of Captain Machchhar. He was not Israeli. He was an Indian pilot doing his job when he was viciously attacked. Gravely wounded, he nevertheless managed to create the opportunity that allowed others to intervene. His heroism belongs at the center of this story.

Nor should a happy ending make us complacent. The security failures that placed nearly 180 people in danger have to be examined without fear or political spin. Courage is no substitute for competent security.

But investigations tell us how a disaster almost happened. They do not entirely explain why it didn’t. For that, we also have to look at the people aboard the airplane.

I have written before about what it means to live in Israel rather than merely observe it from afar. Sometimes the difference is found in the great national events. But sometimes it reveals itself in smaller human moments. People here argue. They complain. They interrupt one another. They are certain they know a better way of doing almost everything.

And then an emergency comes.

Suddenly the fellow who was pushing ahead of you in line yesterday may be the one running toward you today. That is part of Israel, too.

There will be plenty of ink spilled over the Flydubai attack in the coming days — about the attacker, radicalization, screening, Saudi Arabia, aviation security and the failures that put all those lives at risk. There should be.

But I hope we leave a little ink for something else. A wounded captain opened a cockpit door. Some ordinary people saw what was happening on the other side. And instead of waiting to be saved, they went through it.

Stephen F. Flatow is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror,” now available in an expanded paperback edition on Amazon.com, and is the chair of the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi. An oleh chadash, who used to live in West Orange, he divides his time between Jerusalem and Long Branch.