Prime Minister (PM) of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu’s account of the Flydubai cockpit incident has failed to convince users on X, with many dismissing his version of the events as propaganda and questioning the circumstances surrounding his meeting with passenger Yaniv Hayun.
The Israeli prime minister said that Hayun helped overpower a co-pilot who had stabbed the pilot and tried to crash the aircraft during the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv.
Flydubai, however, said that an “altercation” occurred in the flight deck and that the reasons and motives behind it were unknown, urging people not to speculate. The flight was diverted to Tabuk in Saudi Arabia and landed safely.
Netanyahu later met Hayun, who was wearing the blood-stained clothes he had worn during the incident. Netanyahu praised him for helping overpower the attacker and described him as a hero. Hayun later recounted how he and other passengers entered the cockpit and helped restrain the co-pilot.
The meeting prompted a wave of skeptical reactions on X, with several users questioning the presentation of the incident and accusing Netanyahu’s government of using the episode for propaganda.
One user questioned how Netanyahu could pose for a photo with Hayun while he was still wearing clothes stained with blood, asking, “Who buys this stuff?”
Others called the scene a “false flag” and “psyop”, while one user simply wrote, “Not real blood.”
Several users dismissed the presentation as propaganda. One said that they were “getting out of hand with the propaganda”, while another described it as “the lamest propaganda I have ever seen.”
Some reactions focused on Netanyahu’s political motives. One user claimed he was trying to win an election “by any means necessary” and speculated about a possible false-flag attack involving Mossad agents. Another compared him with the President of the United States (US) Donald Trump.
Other users mocked the presence of blood on Hayun’s clothes, with one asking why Netanyahu was apparently not concerned about blood-borne pathogens. One post read: “It’s utterly amazing. People are buying this crap!”
One user sarcastically pointed to the photograph itself, writing, “Who buys this stuff? It says right there in the bottom corner.”
Other posts accused Mossad of being involved, with one post saying, “I smell the stink of Mossad in this script.” Another described the incident as another attempt at a psyop (a planned military or strategic effort to influence the emotions, motives and behavior of foreign groups or enemies without using physical force).
One user claimed Netanyahu had “murdered a Palestinian child” before appearing at the meeting, while another said that he had “ruined the new false flag.”
Flight-tracking data showed that FZ1073 experienced a rapid loss of altitude before issuing an emergency signal. FlightRadar24 said the aircraft dropped more than 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds, with vertical speeds far outside the range normally seen during regular operations.
