The events on FlyDubai Flight 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv on 30 September 2026 reads like something out of one of my thrillers.But what occurred in the skies over Saudi Arabia was not fiction, it was real world and highlights an adage I learned long ago and has been repeated in various incarnations across social channels with differing attributions over the years — hope is not a course of action, in most cases, no one is coming to save you, you will need to be your own cavalry.That means be prepared.I am actually surprised that this or something like this has not happened previously — an unhinged pilot or co-pilot killing the other, perhaps suicidal, perhaps in search of martyrdom, as what some terrorist organizations call an istishhadi or "martyrdom seeker."FORMER ISRAELI PM HAILS ‘HEROISM’ AFTER PASSENGERS HELP THWART ALLEGED COCKPIT ATTACKWith prior planning it is possible for pilots to work together in a "martyrdom operation" that would be much harder to thwart.
Or a single pilot or co-pilot could work with other "muscle" sitting in first class to prevent passengers from doing what they did on September 30, giving the terrorist in the cockpit time to kill them all or once again turn an airliner into a weapon focused on a specific target.I think about scenarios like this every time I fly.I look at and evaluate the passengers, the flight attendants, and I always look in on the pilots as I enter the aircraft, searching for anything that does not look or feel right, remembering something a Vietnam-era Project Delta Army Special Forces soldier told me decades ago: "if it doesn’t look right, it’s probably not."Trust your instincts — you have them for a reason.I am also identifying assets and liabilities among those groups.Who is a potential asset if things go south? I’m noting shoes, belts, shirts, watches, hats, bags, sunglasses, tattoos, cauliflower ear, and filing away what that tells me about each person.
Which of them are likely to help — and ...