Not a tragedy, but averting one, became the bigger news

In journalism, we say, when something goes wrong, it becomes news. The bigger the misfortune (if it can be quantified in some manner), the bigger the news.

One of my editors used to say, if there is an accident, don't just go by the number of people who died, look at also the number of people who were saved or who escaped death.

This is what came to my mind when I was following reports about the dramatic and extraordinary scenes inside the cockpit of the Flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv, carrying over 150 passengers, mainly Israelis.

Fortunately, nothing happened. There was no hijack. The plane didn't crash. It landed safely. There was no loss of lives. Two people suffered injuries.

It was such big news; not because of any misfortune or an accident. On the contrary, it was a providential escape from a massive tragedy. An escape from a calamity that would have befallen not just the 150-odd passengers and crew of the plane but an entire region as well.

What happened on board the flight was something unprecedented. One pilot stabbed another pilot while the plane was cruising at an altitude of over 34,000 ft. Israeli PM Netanyahu said it was an attempt to crash the plane.

The pilot, who resisted the attack of the co-pilot and got stabbed, was an Indian, Smit Machchhar, who worked for an Indian airline, SpiceJet, for 11 years before joining the Dubai airline. We would know more about what happened once he recovers and gives his testimony to the investigators.

The world first got to know about this when the plane signalled the emergency code, squawk 7700, and later squawk 7500, which means hijacking.

On hearing the screams and chaos inside the cockpit, passengers and crew broke in and overpowered the attacker. Two of the passengers were pilots, or at least they knew the controls of an airplane. They took charge. 

By then, the plane had dropped from 34,000 feet to around 16,600 feet in just over two minutes. The two manually guided the plane to land safely at Tabuk in Saudi Arabia.

It was such immense luck that there were two pilots among the passengers who could take control of the plane and land it safely. I dread to think what would have happened if that wasn't the case.

If the plane had crashed, it's anybody's guess how Israel would have reacted. The already unstable and volatile region would have just descended further into unthinkable turmoil.