Something deeply disturbing about the reaction to the flydubai Flight FZ1073 incident has surprisingly little to do with the aircraft itself. The aircraft, after all, appears to have behaved exactly as the available evidence says it did. The people watching the story immediately began doing ideological gymnastics. A Boeing 737 carrying 174 people from Dubai to Tel Aviv experienced a violent cockpit incident.

The Omani co-pilot allegedly stabbed the Indian captain; the aircraft plunged almost 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds; an emergency was declared; passengers entered the cockpit; and the aircraft was eventually brought under control and diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Captain Smit Machchhar was seriously injured and required surgery. Two other pilots travelling as passengers helped land the aircraft safely. The UAE has now opened an investigation into what happened and whether terrorism or prior planning was involved.

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These are not Israeli fantasies. The flight path can be independently reconstructed, the aircraft landed in Saudi Arabia, the injured Indian captain exists, the airline exists, the passengers exist, and the emergency happened. Yet almost before the aircraft had stopped smoking metaphorically, the conspiracy theorists had boarded. Apparently, the fact that an Israeli passenger helped save the aircraft is suspicious. The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu subsequently met him is suspicious, and the fact that the passenger said he remembered something from watching Air Crash Investigation is apparently suspicious enough to make Mossad look like a bunch of amateurs writing scripts for a particularly desperate Netflix thriller.

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The passenger's story is certainly extraordinary. Yaniv Hayoun, who was not a pilot, reportedly........

© Mathrubhumi English