The Flydubai plane, in which a disaster was miraculously averted on September 30, was severely damaged as a result of the incident. The fact that he was able to be safely imprisoned after this is another great success, according to experts with whom the BBC Russian Service spoke.
On September 30, on board Flydubai Boeing 737 MAX 8, flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv, the co-pilot unexpectedly attacked the crew commander with a knife. During the ensuing fight, the plane went down quickly and sharply.
The passengers managed to immobilize the attacker, and other Flydubai pilots flying on the same flight took control of the aircraft. Their names are not mentioned. The plane soon made an emergency landing in the city of Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia.
Photos taken after landing show that the Boeing 737 MAX's rudder, a deflectable flap on the vertical tail unit, was partially destroyed.
This rudder is needed to change the direction of flight - it turns the plane in a horizontal plane. However, it is not used for turning: the plane usually turns using ailerons on the wings, which tilt it to the right or left.
The rudder is especially important during landing. With its help, in a crosswind, pilots direct the nose of the airliner against the oncoming flow, deflecting it away from the direction of the aircraft's movement. This way they maintain their flight direction. In such a situation, the plane flies slightly sideways until the last moment, leveling out at the last moment before touching the runway.
As can be seen from a photograph of the Flydubai plane taken after landing, only a small part of the rudder remained.
As an aeronautical engineer, who did not want to be named, explained to the BBC, the rudder's destruction was likely due to stresses that could occur during a sharp deflection of the rudder at high speed. It is unclear at what point the destruction occurred. The steering wheel is controlled by pedals: to sharply tilt the steering wheel, you had to press the pedal with your foot.
During the incident, the plane suddenly began to lose altitude. He descended approximately 4.3 km in less than 30 seconds. As OSINTtechnical calculated, at this moment the Boeing exceeded its maximum operational speed by almost 100 knots (160 km/h).
After a sharp decline, judging by information from the Flightradar24 website, it made a sharp reversal.
The fact that the plane was able to land without such an important system as the rudder is a real miracle, an aviation engineer told the BBC.
Several plane crashes have occurred due to rudder malfunctions, Israeli pilot Pavel Semchenko told the BBC, and the fact that this time there was no accident is the result not only of the professionalism of the pilots, but also of a favorable combination of circumstances.
According to him, it was also a great success that the damaged parts of the steering wheel froze in the direction of the air flow. Otherwise, they could interfere with the flight by turning the plane around in the air.
“Maybe the wind wasn’t so strong there, because they could easily have rolled out of the runway somewhere. And so everything worked out. And the fact that they lost this rudder, and it did not get stuck, its parts did not deviate, the oncoming flow aligned them level with the keel - [also a successful coincidence]. It's good that this didn't create any moment for them that could cause them to simply fall. This is a miracle, from my point of view,” he said.
“The rudder is controlled primarily automatically at altitude and cruising speed. But on landing, especially if there was a crosswind, problems with the rudder were probably an additional stress factor for the pilots,” explained Semchenko.
The hero of this accident was the commander of the aircraft, Indian pilot Smith Machchhar. He not only fought back the attacker - the co-pilot, but, while bleeding, managed to open the cockpit door - this can only be done from inside it. This allowed passengers to enter the cockpit.
The first of them was the Israeli Yaniv Hayun, another hero of these events. He neutralized the attacker, after which he leveled the plane, which at that moment was already descending at high speed.
“I’m watching Air Crash Investigation, Mr. Prime Minister,” he explained his actions at a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The plane began to level off, and then the pilot told me that he would then take control.”
