New York (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) It happened this week and 56 years ago – to the month!
On Wednesday, the 19th of Tishrei 5787, which was September 30th, 2026, in the middle of Chol HaMoed Sukkos. The flight was FZ1073, flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv. There were 174 people on board. The co-pilot attacked the captain in an apparent attempt to seize control of the Boeing 737 MAX 8. The jet dropped thousands of feet in altitude. The co-pilot is reported to be from Oman. One passenger described the plunge as the wildest roller coaster imaginable. The electricity, the entertainment system and the air conditioning all shut down, and anyone who was standing in the aisle or walking to the bathroom was thrown to the floor.
The captain, Smit Machchhar of India, had been stabbed. Even though he was seriously wounded, he fought back and opened the cockpit door so that passengers and crew could overpower the attacker.
The first man through that door was not a pilot, a soldier or a police officer. He was a plumber. Yaniv Hayoun told Prime Minister Netanyahu that he put the attacker in a chokehold, dragged him out of the cockpit, and then went back in and grabbed the plane’s controls. He pulled back on the controls while another passenger and a crew member subdued the attacker. He was joined by a dentist, Dr. Shota Musaev, who helped restrain the attacker and then treated the wounded pilot, and by Tzvika Manes and Assaf Rajuan. Tzvika Manes was traveling with his wife and young daughter.
The dentist said the captain had lost a massive amount of blood and that a few more moments would have cost his life. Afterward, a second pair of flydubai pilots who were traveling on board took the controls and landed the plane safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. All 174 passengers survived, bh.
President Trump praised the plumber for helping regain control of the jet even though he had never flown a plane. Prime Minister Netanyahu called Yaniv Hayoun a hero who deserved “a global medal of honor.” The passengers who rushed the cockpit later said they did it because they knew their families were on that plane, and if they had not gone in, nobody would have survived.
These heroic actions have a remarkable corollary in the past.
They happened 56 years ago as well. Then too, an airplane full of Jews was targeted in midair. Then too, the plane went into a terrifying plunge of thousands of feet. Then too, a crew member lay wounded and bleeding, and a dentist on board was the one asked to help. And then too, there were people who refused to stand idly by the blood of their brothers.
It was the fifth of Elul, 5730, which was September 6th, 1970. This was a time when evil people first began to use guns and explosives to threaten human lives, hundreds of innocent human lives. It was the time when people first began to blow up airplanes.
On September 6th of 1970, four planes were hijacked. The planes were flown to an abandoned British airfield in Jordan. Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner zt”l and his daughter, Rebbitzne David a”h were on one of those planes.
But there was another plane that evil people had planned to hijack. It was El Al Flight 219. What follows is a description of three events that took place on that flight, and an expression of gratitude, Hakaras Hatov, to Captain Uri Bar Lev, about whom no book was ever written, no documentary ever made, and no movie ever produced.
El Al Flight 219 originated at Ben Gurion Airport, flying to Amsterdam and then on to New York. The new crew, including its captain, Uri Bar Lev, took over from Amsterdam to New York.
Also boarding that flight were two suspicious people, Leila Khaled and Patrick Arguello, flying under assumed names.
Soon after takeoff, Uri Bar Lev and his co-pilot got word that two terrorists were hijacking the plane. They locked the door to the cockpit. The terrorists had shot and gravely wounded an El Al flight attendant. They put a gun to the head of a stewardess and told her to tell the pilots that if they did not open the door, they would shoot her in the temple.
Bar Lev had a plan. Years earlier, a Boeing trainer had told him that the new 707 had the versatility of a real fighter plane. Bar Lev, who flew for the Israeli air force, then asked him if the 707 was capable of “climbing and diving” maneuvers. The instructor said, “Yes, but don’t go over negative 2 G.”
Bar Lev had to save the stewardess and all of the passengers who were about to be hijacked. He had enough altitude to put the plane in a steep dive. The aircraft plummeted 3,300 meters in under 60 seconds. His passengers would be in for the ride of their lives, but they were all seated and strapped in.
On the other hand, a terrorist does not strap himself in, nor does he or she sit down. They would be too easily overpowered. As Uri Bar Lev knew would happen, Arguello and Khaled were thrown to the floor by the G forces.
Bar Lev, who had stowed one of the Israeli security force (Shabak) sky marshals in the cockpit because of his suspicions, instructed him to go out the moment he leveled off. Both that sky marshal and the second Shabak sky marshal, who was in the back, came forward and shot Arguello dead. Khaled was subdued.
His superiors in Israel were aware of the other hijackings but did not tell Bar Lev. They instructed him to fly immediately back to Israel. But one of the stewards was injured. Bar Lev looked at him and saw that he was a very pale white. The steward said, “Uri, mah yikreh li? Uri, what will be with me?”
A doctor on board told Captain Bar Lev that the steward would be fine. Captain Bar Lev asked the doctor about his specialty. He answered that he was a dentist. Uri Bar Lev then disobeyed the orders of his superiors and radioed London’s Heathrow Airport, requesting permission for an emergency landing.
It was granted.
When this author told Uri of the Mishnah in Sanhedrin that says, “Whoever saves one life…”, the captain, although completely secular, finished the Mishnah by himself. He related that his zaideh was a Rav in Ukraine and Poland.
But back on the plane, he knew that there would be an investigation, because there was the matter of Arguello’s dead body. Three months earlier, an Israeli sky marshal had killed a terrorist in France and was placed in jail. Captain Uri Bar Lev radioed another El Al pilot and, in coded Hebrew, worked out that the two Shabak men would leave through the luggage compartment and enter the same compartment on another airplane. Tickets were issued to the two Shabak men, and they became regular passengers on the second plane.
In the meantime, the steward, Shlomo Videl, was taken to the hospital in London and survived.
What happened to Captain Uri Bar Lev? The Israeli government was not happy with him for disobeying instructions. There were hearings and inquiries, but Bar Lev stood his ground.
What is the chain of command in such an event? Is the captain in charge of the safety of his passengers? Or does the Shabak retain authority? Ultimately, it was resolved that the captain is in charge, but there were repercussions to his career.
This author believes that from a halachic perspective, Captain Uri Bar Lev did everything right. He was a true hero in every sense of the word. El Al and Shabak did not see things the same way. Captain Bar Lev retired three and a half years later.
The terrorist Leila Khaled spearheaded the hijacking movement that culminated in what we know as the post-9/11 world we live in today. Every time we take off our shoes and belts and take our laptops out of their cases before we board a flight, we must thank Leila Khaled. Indeed, a sycophantic, adulatory movie was made about her, while the Pidyon Shvuyim hero, Captain Uri Bar Lev, remains obscure.
The administration of El Al and Prime Minister Netanyahu should perhaps consider looking into this matter and correcting this half-century-old wrong. The world has gone mad and is morally bankrupt. We need true heroes, and Captain Uri Bar Lev is an unsung hero.
What were his three separate actions that day? He saved a planeload of people from becoming hostages, which is pidyon shvuyim in its most pristine form. He saved the Shabak sky marshals, which is more pidyon shvuyim. And he saved the steward, Shlomo Videl, from death. In each of these three actions he fulfilled the Rambam’s eight mitzvos in Pidyon Shvuyim (8 times 3 = 24):
- Lo se’ametz es levavcha: Do not harden your heart (Devarim 15:7)
- V’lo sikpotz es yadcha: Nor shall you close your hand (Devarim 15:7)
- Lo sa’amod al dam re’echa: Do not stand idly by your brother’s blood (Vayikra 19:16)
- Lo yirdenu b’farech l’einecha: Do not let him be oppressed with harsh labor before your eyes (Vayikra 25:53)
- Pasoach tiftach es yadcha lo: You shall surely open your hand for him (Devarim 15:8)
- V’chai achicha imach: And your brother shall live with you (Vayikra 25:36)
- V’ahavta l’re’acha kamocha: Love your fellow as yourself (Vayikra 19:18)
- Hatzel lekuchim lamaves: Save those taken toward death (Mishlei 24:11)
Pidyon Shvuyim isn’t just paying a ransom. We see from the ge’ulah in Egypt that the verb pidyon also refers to physically taking captives out. We can redeem hostages physically, as Captain Uri Bar Lev did. May the IDF succeed in doing so for the hostages of the Simchat Torah massacre.
The author can be reached at [email protected]