A major disaster was avoided after the terrorist co-pilot stabbed the pilot, forcing the airliner from Dubai to plunge thousands of feet in seconds to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

As the mid-air drama on the flyDubai plane was unfolding, some of the passengers — most on board were Israeli — and two off-duty pilots, burst into the cockpit to take control of the Boeing 737.

The injured pilot was dragged out and the attacker tied up. It’s too early to say where the hijacker planned to crash the plane in a 9/11 repeat — the Knesset? The Western Wall?

“The entire cockpit was covered in blood,” one passenger said after a rescue plane took them back to Israel from Tabuk airport in north-west Saudi. “We were either going to crash or be murdered.”

Premier Benjamin Netanyahu was at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport to embrace the returning passengers — especially Yaniv Hayou, one of the Israelis who jumped on the would-be hijacker and subdued him.

Yaniv apologised to the prime minister that his clothes were still covered in blood, to which Netanyahu replied: “It’s an honour to meet you this way. How did you do it?”

Yaniv replied: “We are a nation of lions.”

Netanyahu hugged him and said: “I see you and I see a lion. You are a great hero.

“What you did is just unbelievable. You saved not only the passengers of the plane, but many others,”

Yaniv revealed that he learned to control the plane from the documentary series Mayday. He added that at that point, the alternate pilot came and took charge.

“Someone screamed, and the lights went out,” he recalled. “Someone wearing a white shirt stood by the door. Together, we pushed the door.

“The pilot who was stabbed was at the door, but he apparently managed to open it before collapsing.

“When I went into the cockpit, I saw the terrorist on the devices between the two chairs.

“I grabbed him, choked him and pulled him away. He tried to ruin the devices to neutralise the plane, which had its nose pointing down.

“I called another two guys who helped me grab him. I began to pull the steering wheel up, and I stopped the plane from diving.”

Israeli dentist Musaev Shota was another of the four passengers who rushed towards the cockpit of flight FZ1073 which was flying from Dubai.

After helping overpower and restrain the Omani co-pilot, Shota turned to the badly wounded captain and provided emergency medical treatment that, he says, helped save his life.

“I didn’t wait — I saw something was wrong and ran,” Shota told the website Ynet after returning to Israel.

He said the captain was in extremely serious condition when he reached him.

“He had heavy bleeding from his head and hands,” Shota added. “I was the only doctor on the plane.

“I managed to stop the bleeding, and the pilot was fairly stable until shortly before landing, when his condition deteriorated.”

Shota said several passengers joined the struggle to overpower the attacker.

“There were a few brave people there,” he added. “We took control of the attacker and tied him up. It was difficult, but we managed.

“The pilot was talking to us while he was lying there and told us he was 39 and had two children. The attacker stabbed him and cursed him.

“The plane lost altitude insanely fast, we thought we were going to die.”.

Another passenger said that one of the pilots was stabbed with a penknife and there was a large amount of blood.

According to him, the pilot lost control of the flight for several minutes, and the Israeli passengers helped regain control of the situation.

“There were moments when we were sure this was the end,” the passenger said. “We heard screaming and yelling and then we saw them open the cockpit and that there was blood there.”

Another passenger commented: “As soon as the cockpit opened, numerous Israeli passengers rushed forward. We heard shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’.”

And a woman passenger said that the pilot suffered serious stab wounds before the co-pilot could be dragged off him.

“There are people here with shirts covered in blood,” she added.

The injured pilot was Indian and the terrorist co-pilot Omani.

Before it was diverted to Saudi Arabia, the plane was over Jordan when it transmitted a 7500 signal indicating a possible hijacking, prompting Israel to scramble fighter jets.

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