OPINION: THE MIRACLE IN THE SKY — SEPTEMBER 30, 2026

WGON

7 hours ago

6 min read

BY: LINDA KIRBY / WGON

Wed. September 30, 2026, a miracle of major proportions took place. One so profound that only those who deny God will refuse to give Him the glory for it.

You’ve likely seen the reporting on the Flydubai flight where the co‑pilot stabbed the captain at 33,000 feet in the air. What happened next was filled with so much fear, so much chaos, and so many miracles that it would be a discredit to God if someone didn’t elaborate on them and give Him the credit for saving this plane full of Israelis.

This is not a political story. This is not a news story. This is a God story.

🌿 The Cockpit: A Scene of Chaos and Divine Strength

Let’s look at this as a movie — one where you are drawn straight into the scene and feel like you’re living it.

Imagine: hours of flying with no trouble, and suddenly the plane takes a huge dip. You think, “Oh, an air pocket.” But no — now it’s like you’re on a roller coaster, dropping so fast and so sharply that you actually feel the G‑force.

Fear swells inside you. Kids and women are screaming. Then the power goes out.

No air conditioning. No lights. And now… it gets real.

People shout, “What’s happening? What’s going on?!” Children cry for mama and daddy to help them.

If that’s not scary enough, the PA system opens — and you hear the pilot screaming for help.

A woman comes out of the adjacent restroom where she heard the attack and leaves the restroom screaming, “they are stabbing the captain, they are stabbing the captain!!” Now, everyone is in panic mode.

Now it’s extremely serious. Your thoughts are: We are going to die.

A brave man, Yaniv Hayoun, — a military cook and a plumber by trade, someone with no battle training — sees something must be done. His wife, his kids, and 174 other people’s lives depend on it. He jumps into action.

It’s the same kind of moment we saw at Pearl Harbor, when Navy cook Doris “Dorie” Miller — a man trained only to prepare meals — jumped into action, grabbed a weapon he’d never used, and saved countless lives.

This plane passenger struggles to walk toward the cockpit was knocked down once by the angle of the plane, using the seats to keep himself upright. He reaches the door just as the stabbed pilot raises his foot to unlock it. He notices the copilot was standing in between the two pilot seats trying to jam plane controls so to cause the crash. The hero grabbed the copilot and put him into a choke hold to subdue him as the attacker struggles to be set free. He was yelling to kill him, kill him.

The pilot, Smit Machchhar an Indian father of two, was stabbed in the neck, head, shoulder as Bibi said in his interview and bleeding profusely — is fighting the attacker, trying to keep the plane from crashing, trying to reset the squawk codes so the ground will know there’s trouble on board. Still fighting, he has the strength and presence of mind to turn on the PA and raise his leg to unlock that door. Without those two actions, the plane would have crashed and 174 souls would have been lost.

The pilot was given superhuman strength and supernatural clarity to do all of that while being stabbed. With blood pouring, trying to stay conscious, fighting for his life and the passengers’ lives, he was able to do both — the very actions that allowed the next phase of this horror show to begin… and end in victory.

With the hero passenger, Yaniv Hayoun, now able to enter, this man — having no fighting skills — grabs the attacker who was trying to sabotage the plane, puts him in a choke hold, and at the same time pulls up on the flight controls. Asked later how he knew to do that since he isn’t a pilot, Yaniv Hayoun said laughing:

“I saw it on a TV air disaster show.”

We might think that’s funny, but again, it is God showing He’s in control — allowing him to remember that show while under such extreme stress and be brave enough to do it. He had only seconds to decide, not time to think, what if I do something that makes things worse. No, he did it and that act, in those crucial seconds saved the plane...for that moment anyway.

Behind the brave passenger were three or four other men who stepped up to help hold down the co‑pilot, bind him, and guard him while the captain could be attended to by a dentist passenger who stated the pilot was in very bad shape and lost consciousness. Had he arrived to help just a couple minutes later, the 39 yrs. old pilot would have died. From later reporting we hear the pilot is in stable condition after undergoing surgery for his injuries.

🌿 The Plane Itself: A Machine Held Together by God

During the sudden drop and spin, the rudder of the plane was ripped off. Some believe other damage occurred as well because when the rudder flies off, it damages a lot of the plane from hitting areas that are crucial to flight. Under normal circumstances — without an attacker, without the aircraft plunging from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet in about a minute. — losing the rudder would have been a very bad day for a pilot.

Yet there “just so happened” to be an extra crew on board.

How about that? A crew who could fly the plane now. God is in control.

The plane is in terrible shape. No pilots. A war going on in the cockpit. People afraid and screaming. No electricity.

And God is still in control.

The stabbed pilot is alive and able to open the door and keep the plane from crashing immediately. A passenger subdues the attacker, others help, and an extra crew in the back of the plane steps forward to take over and attempt to land the crippled aircraft. A miracle not just heroism.

Oh, God’s not finished.

Yes, the plane should have crashed for many different reasons. But the replacement crew had to have special skill to land that damaged plane without deaths. Many pilots with similar damage have not been able to do so — and many died.

But this crew did it.

Why?

Because God was still in control.

And the story still isn’t over.

Israel sent up jets to shoot down the plane because they believed the hijacker might fly it into high‑rise buildings, like 9/11. If the order had gone out, the plane would have been shot down.

But God… God is in control.

The order never went out.

The captain was rescued. The co‑pilot was bound. The replacement crew flew the plane. And it landed safely — a battered aircraft held together under stress it was never built to sustain. It exceeded its limits by 100 knots.

Why?

Because God was in control. His hand held that plane together. Metal doesn’t hold under those conditions. But God does.

When Fox interviewed former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, they said, “This was a real miracle.” Bennett replied:

“No, this was not a miracle. This was true heroism.”

Some people still rely on the actions of man — not God.

Yet John Roberts — ending his interview with a survivor — said the words the world needed to hear:

“God was watching out for you.”

🌿 The Real News of the Day

After all the chaos… after all the danger… after all the miracles…

After the many people interviewed who had leadership rolls all denying God’s work…

One passenger didn’t deny Him. She said, “Thank God we got home, thank God!”

Another passenger itemized 4 miracles he saw during the worse day of his life. He even said when they got off the plane and saw how battered up the plane was, that was a miracle that they didn’t disintegrate in mid air.

Many people are giving heroism the glory not God. While heroism was on steroids in that cockpit, God was dispensing them.

There were some brave people who did give God the glory. Not the rulers, not the people who claim to be of importance, but normal everyday people who know who was in control.

A journalist finally said what the world refuses to say:

God was watching out for them.

The real news of the day was not the attack. Not the heroism. Not the headlines.

It was this: