There were two more heroes on board FlyDubai - what they did during the attack

On board FlyDubai flight FZ1073 during an attempted hijacking, two flight attendants from Kenya, David Kimutu and John Muchina, provided first aid to the severely wounded Captain Smith Maher while passengers struggled with the attacker. Their identities were established from new footage from the cabin.

On board FlyDubai flight FZ1073, which was subjected to an attempted hijacking, two crew members from Kenya — senior flight attendant David Kimutu and his colleague John Muchina — provided first aid to the severely wounded Captain Smith Maher. While passengers tried to deal with the man who attacked the pilot, the flight attendants remained near the captain, who was lying on the floor bleeding. Kenyan media identified the crew members after the release of new footage from the aircraft cabin. The video that appeared online shows them near the wounded captain, trying to monitor his condition and speaking to each other in Swahili. One flight attendant asked the other to check if Maher could speak and to keep talking to him. They also tried to properly support the captain's head and asked for a pillow. At the same time, the situation in the passenger cabin remained extremely tense: people were shouting and trying to film the events on their phones. At one point, the senior flight attendant stood up and demanded that passengers return to their seats and stop filming. Before this footage emerged, the main focus had been on the passengers who fought the attacker, as well as the pilots who later managed to take control of the aircraft and land it safely. The actions of the cabin crew in the first minutes after the attack remained largely unknown. The identities of the two pilots who ended up in the cockpit after the attack and managed to land the plane have still not been publicly disclosed.